you have the the weight and height of 15 men (weights are in C6:C20 and
heights are in D6:D20) and you need their body mass index. You can use the
formula bar, for example, clicking E6 and typing¼C6/(D6 5 2). The content
of E6 now has the body mass index for the first man in your sample, but you
do not have to repeat this process 15 times. Notice that when you click on E6,
there is a little box in the lower right corner of the cell boundary. If you move
the mouse over this box, the cursor changes to a smaller plus sign. If you click
on this box, you can then drag the mouse over the remaining cells, and when
you release the button, the cells will be filled.
Bar and Pie Charts Forming a bar chart or pie to display proportions is a
very simple task. Just click any blank cell to start; you’ll be able to move your
chart to any location when done. With data ready, click theChartWizardicon
(the one with multiple colored bars on thestandard toolbarnear the top). A box
appears with choices including bar chart, pie chart, and line chart; the list is on
the left side. Choose your chart type and follow instructions. There are many
choices, including three dimensions. You can put data and charts side by side
for an impressive presentation.
Rate Standardization This is a good problem to practice with Excel: Use itas
a calculator. Recall this example:
Florida’s rate¼1085.3
Alaska’s rate¼396.8
If Florida has Alaska’s population (see Table 1.9), you can:
Useformulato calculate the first number expected.
Usedrag and fillto obtain other numbers expected.
Select the last column, then clickAutosum icon(P
) to obtain the total
number of deaths expected.Forming 2 D 2 Tables Recall that in a data file you have one row for each
subject and one column for each variable. Suppose thattwoof those variables
are categorical, saybinary, and you want toform a 2 2 tableso you can study
their relationship: for example, to calculate anodds ratio.
Step 0:Create a (dummy factor), call it, say,fake, and fill up that column
with ‘‘ 1 ’’ (you can enter ‘‘1’’ for the first subject, thenselect and drag).
Step 1: Activatea cell (by clicking it), then clickData(on the bar above
the standard toolbar, near the end); when a box appears, choosePivot-
Table Report. Click ‘‘next’’ (to indicate that data are here, in Excel, then
highlightthe area containing your data (including variable names on the
first row—use the mouse; or you could identify therange of cells—say,
C5:E28) as a response to a question onrange. Then click ‘‘next’’ to bring
in thePivotTable Wizard, which shows two groups of things:NOTES ON COMPUTATIONS 33