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The Differences Between Data and Information: a Short Analysis

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The differences between data and information: a short analysis What is data? I have researched on the Internet and in books for the meaning and description of data and there are a variety of meanings and some are very misleading the best two meanings I found were “data consists of random (or a set of random) unprocessed facts with little or no intrinsic value”(S. Yull, T. Stump p-6) and “Data: the raw facts and figures a computer accepts as input and then processes to produce useful information” (P. M. Heathcote, S. Langfield p-16). Data Is used in every day life by everyone, it is all around us data has to be processed into information to be understood otherwise it has no meaning so without data there is no information data is plural …show more content…

If you input accurate and good data the output will be good information, if you input bad data the output will be inaccurate and the information will most defiantly be unreliable. The accuracy of the information depends on the reliability of the data and the reliability of the user. Garbage in refers to two major problems, one) when data in incorrectly input and two)when data is of poor quality. Garbage out refers to refers to tacking out the bad data and the problems caused by the bad data. What is information? Information is a set of meaningful, processed data that can be put to use. (S. Yull, T. Stump p-16) Information: Any form of communication that provides understandable and useful knowledge to the recipient. (P. M. Heathcote, S. Langfield p-16) Information reveals the meaning of data. We receive information from processing data. Once processed the data becomes more useful as we now have an understanding of what is and what the data means. Information supports decision making and is used by literally everyone to keep the world running it’s used by businesses, organizations, schools, by me, by you etcetera. For example I am using information right

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