Classification Serration and Tabulation

For any purposes the data are collected either in a schedule or in a questionnaire format. After getting the questionnaire output the data has to be presented in such a way so that a single numerical number would reflect the entire characteristics of the data. In order to have a meaningful comparison of data the raw data has to be classified according to certain attributes and then the data has to be presented in a tabular format for comparison. The raw data are not directly fit for analysis and interpretation. If, for example, the figures of the monthly expenses of 20,000 households residing in a particular area are collected, it would not be possible to draw any inferences from them. For purposes of comparison, analysis and interpretation, it is essential that the data are represented in a suitable format. Further, it is also essential that the homogenous groups are created from the non-homogenous groups in order to have a good comparison. Out of those 20,000 household some may be belong to o a particular income range like poor category, some may be middle class and some others may be belong to the rich category. For the purpose of analysis and interpretation, data have to be divided in homogeneous groups. In order to remove these defects-of volume and heterogeneity-statistical data are tabulated with a view to present a summarized and homogeneous picture. But before the tabulation of data, it is necessary to arrange them in homogeneous groups so that there may be no difficulty in tabulation. So before tabulation of data it is necessary to do the classification of data according to their attributes.