The world around us is full of data that holds unique insights and valuable stories, and this book will help you uncover them. Whether you already work with data or want to learn more about its possibilities, the examples and techniques in this practical book will help you more easily clean, evaluate, and analyze data so that you can generate meaningful insights and compelling visualizations. Complementing foundational concepts with expert advice, author Susan E. McGregor provides the resources you need to extract, evaluate, and analyze a wide variety of data sources and formats, along with the tools to communicate your findings effectively. This book delivers a methodical, jargon-free way for data practitioners at any level, from true novices to seasoned professionals, to harness the power of data. Use Python 3.8+ to read, write, and transform data from a variety of sources Understand and use programming basics in Python to wrangle data at scale Organize, document, and structure your code using best practices Collect data from structured data files, web pages, and APIs Perform basic statistical analyses to make meaning from datasets Visualize and present data in clear and compelling ways

Get complete instructions for manipulating, processing, cleaning, and crunching datasets in Python. Updated for Python 3.6, the second edition of this hands-on guide is packed with practical case studies that show you how to solve a broad set of data analysis problems effectively. You’ll learn the latest versions of pandas, NumPy, IPython, and Jupyter in the process. Written by Wes McKinney, the creator of the Python pandas project, this book is a practical, modern introduction to data science tools in Python. It’s ideal for analysts new to Python and for Python programmers new to data science and scientific computing. Data files and related material are available on GitHub. Use the IPython shell and Jupyter notebook for exploratory computing Learn basic and advanced features in NumPy (Numerical Python) Get started with data analysis tools in the pandas library Use flexible tools to load, clean, transform, merge, and reshape data Create informative visualizations with matplotlib Apply the pandas groupby facility to slice, dice, and summarize datasets Analyze and manipulate regular and irregular time series data Learn how to solve real-world data analysis problems with thorough, detailed examples

A key task that any aspiring data-driven organization needs to learn is data wrangling, the process of converting raw data into something truly useful. This practical guide provides business analysts with an overview of various data wrangling techniques and tools, and puts the practice of data wrangling into context by asking, "What are you trying to do and why?" Wrangling data consumes roughly 50-80% of an analyst’s time before any kind of analysis is possible. Written by key executives at Trifacta, this book walks you through the wrangling process by exploring several factors—time, granularity, scope, and structure—that you need to consider as you begin to work with data. You’ll learn a shared language and a comprehensive understanding of data wrangling, with an emphasis on recent agile analytic processes used by many of today’s data-driven organizations. Appreciate the importance—and the satisfaction—of wrangling data the right way. Understand what kind of data is available Choose which data to use and at what level of detail Meaningfully combine multiple sources of data Decide how to distill the results to a size and shape that can drive downstream analysis

Simplify your ETL processes with these hands-on data hygiene tips, tricks, and best practices. Key FeaturesFocus on the basics of data wranglingStudy various ways to extract the most out of your data in less timeBoost your learning curve with bonus topics like random data generation and data integrity checksBook Description For data to be useful and meaningful, it must be curated and refined. Data Wrangling with Python teaches you the core ideas behind these processes and equips you with knowledge of the most popular tools and techniques in the domain. The book starts with the absolute basics of Python, focusing mainly on data structures. It then delves into the fundamental tools of data wrangling like NumPy and Pandas libraries. You’ll explore useful insights into why you should stay away from traditional ways of data cleaning, as done in other languages, and take advantage of the specialized pre-built routines in Python. This combination of Python tips and tricks will also demonstrate how to use the same Python backend and extract/transform data from an array of sources including the Internet, large database vaults, and Excel financial tables. To help you prepare for more challenging scenarios, you’ll cover how to handle missing or wrong data, and reformat it based on the requirements from the downstream analytics tool. The book will further help you grasp concepts through real-world examples and datasets. By the end of this book, you will be confident in using a diverse array of sources to extract, clean, transform, and format your data efficiently. What you will learnUse and manipulate complex and simple data structuresHarness the full potential of DataFrames and numpy.array at run timePerform web scraping with BeautifulSoup4 and html5libExecute advanced string search and manipulation with RegEXHandle outliers and perform data imputation with PandasUse descriptive statistics and plotting techniquesPractice data wrangling and modeling using data generation techniquesWho this book is for Data Wrangling with Python is designed for developers, data analysts, and business analysts who are keen to pursue a career as a full-fledged data scientist or analytics expert. Although, this book is for beginners, prior working knowledge of Python is necessary to easily grasp the concepts covered here. It will also help to have rudimentary knowledge of relational database and SQL.

Learn to effectively manage data and execute data science projects from start to finish using Python Key FeaturesUnderstand and utilize data science tools in Python, such as specialized machine learning algorithms and statistical modelingBuild a strong data science foundation with the best data science tools available in PythonAdd value to yourself, your organization, and society by extracting actionable insights from raw dataBook Description Practical Data Science with Python teaches you core data science concepts, with real-world and realistic examples, and strengthens your grip on the basic as well as advanced principles of data preparation and storage, statistics, probability theory, machine learning, and Python programming, helping you build a solid foundation to gain proficiency in data science. The book starts with an overview of basic Python skills and then introduces foundational data science techniques, followed by a thorough explanation of the Python code needed to execute the techniques. You'll understand the code by working through the examples. The code has been broken down into small chunks (a few lines or a function at a time) to enable thorough discussion. As you progress, you will learn how to perform data analysis while exploring the functionalities of key data science Python packages, including pandas, SciPy, and scikit-learn. Finally, the book covers ethics and privacy concerns in data science and suggests resources for improving data science skills, as well as ways to stay up to date on new data science developments. By the end of the book, you should be able to comfortably use Python for basic data science projects and should have the skills to execute the data science process on any data source. What you will learnUse Python data science packages effectivelyClean and prepare data for data science work, including feature engineering and feature selectionData modeling, including classic statistical models (such as t-tests), and essential machine learning algorithms, such as random forests and boosted modelsEvaluate model performanceCompare and understand different machine learning methodsInteract with Excel spreadsheets through PythonCreate automated data science reports through PythonGet to grips with text analytics techniquesWho this book is for The book is intended for beginners, including students starting or about to start a data science, analytics, or related program (e.g. Bachelor’s, Master’s, bootcamp, online courses), recent college graduates who want to learn new skills to set them apart in the job market, professionals who want to learn hands-on data science techniques in Python, and those who want to shift their career to data science. The book requires basic familiarity with Python. A "getting started with Python" section has been included to get complete novices up to speed.

How do you take your data analysis skills beyond Excel to the next level? By learning just enough Python to get stuff done. This hands-on guide shows non-programmers like you how to process information that’s initially too messy or difficult to access. You don't need to know a thing about the Python programming language to get started. Through various step-by-step exercises, you’ll learn how to acquire, clean, analyze, and present data efficiently. You’ll also discover how to automate your data process, schedule file- editing and clean-up tasks, process larger datasets, and create compelling stories with data you obtain. Quickly learn basic Python syntax, data types, and language concepts Work with both machine-readable and human-consumable data Scrape websites and APIs to find a bounty of useful information Clean and format data to eliminate duplicates and errors in your datasets Learn when to standardize data and when to test and script data cleanup Explore and analyze your datasets with new Python libraries and techniques Use Python solutions to automate your entire data-wrangling process

Statistical methods are a key part of of data science, yet very few data scientists have any formal statistics training. Courses and books on basic statistics rarely cover the topic from a data science perspective. This practical guide explains how to apply various statistical methods to data science, tells you how to avoid their misuse, and gives you advice on what's important and what's not. Many data science resources incorporate statistical methods but lack a deeper statistical perspective. If you’re familiar with the R programming language, and have some exposure to statistics, this quick reference bridges the gap in an accessible, readable format. With this book, you’ll learn: Why exploratory data analysis is a key preliminary step in data science How random sampling can reduce bias and yield a higher quality dataset, even with big data How the principles of experimental design yield definitive answers to questions How to use regression to estimate outcomes and detect anomalies Key classification techniques for predicting which categories a record belongs to Statistical machine learning methods that “learn” from data Unsupervised learning methods for extracting meaning from unlabeled data