Advantages of Tabular Data | Merits of Tabular Presentation of Data | Difference Between Tabular and Textual Presentation of Data

What is the Tabular Data? Tabular Data is nothing but arranging the data systematically and logically in a table form to understand it easily and accurately. Here, even a large amount of data can be arranged in a coordinated manner and easy to read to make students comfortable.

Tabular presentation of data is one of the most used forms to present the data as tables. It makes children easy to read and prepare the questions regarding the data. A tabular data organizes the information in the form of rows and columns. The most important of tabulation is it coordinates the data for decision making and statistical treatment.

What is Tabular Presentation of Data?

Tabular presentation of data is a method to present the data in a simple and significant way. Anything in a tabular presentation of information is arranged in a table, which organizes the data in rows and columns. It is also known as presenting the data using a statistical table. Tabulation is done to coordinate data for additional mathematical treatment and decision-making. The evaluation used in tabular data is of four types. They are as follows:

  • Qualitative Classification
  • Quantitative Classification
  • Temporal Classification
  • Spatial Classification

Objectives of Tabulation

The main objectives of tabulation are as follows:

  1. The tabular presentation helps in summarizing and simplifying complex data.
  2. Tabulation is done to compare different types of data sets and bring out their primary and necessary aspects.
  3. An arithmetical analysis is assumed from tabular data.
  4. It helps in saving time and space. Presentation of data further helps in the formation of graphs and diagrams for analyzing the data.

Advantages of Tabular Data

The advantages of tabular presentation of data are listed below:

  • A table makes the representation of data easy where a large amount of data can be easily summarized in a data table. It is the simple form of presenting data.
  • Data tables are mostly used for arithmetical analysis like calculating numerical data and it helps in analyzing the data easily.
  • A tabular data makes it easy to compare the data.
  • It saves readers space as well as time.
  • It helps in easy visualization of data so students show interest in graphs and diagrams over words.

Disadvantages of Tabular Data

Following are the three disadvantages while presenting the data in a tabular form.

  • It lacks the description of data where it involves diagrams. It overlooks the important aspects.
  • It fails in providing efficient individual items. It gives aggregate data.
  • It requires special knowledge to understand the data in a table.

Difference Between Tabular and Textual Presentation of Data

The following are the differences in the two types of presentation of data (tabular & textual):

Tabular Presentation Textual Presentation
We can find the data easily in a significant manner. You have to go through each line of the given data.
It is an efficient way and it summarizes the data in rows and columns. Makes it tedious and confusing to understand any information.
It helps the viewer to understand and to interpret the information better. It takes time and space to view the information.
In the tabular presentation, we use graphs and diagrams to represent the data. In the textual presentation, we use words to explain the data.

Components used in Tabular Data

The components used in the data table are as follows:

  • Table Number: Indicated on top of each and every table for easy identification and further reference.
  • Title: It describes the contents of the table, and explains the brief of the data, and contains classification data.
  • Headnote: It defines the purpose of the title. Usually, headnotes present the units of data in brackets.
  • Stubs or Row Headings: Stubs describe the information about the data which holds in a particular row. The title of the horizontal rows is known as ‘stubs’.
  • Caption or Column Headings: In each column of a table, it is given to explain the figures of the column. The column head is known as a “caption”.
  • Body: The body of the table says the complete information of the data. Each item in a body is defined as a “cell”.
  • Footnote: Footnotes are rarely used and it is a specific feature and has not to be explained earlier.
  • Source: It is a brief statement indicating the source of data presented in the table. It has to be mentioned below the footnote.

FAQ’s on Advantages of Tabular Presentation

1. What is the main advantage of tabular data?
It makes data representation easy. Also, it is clear to analyze and compare the data which saves readers time as well as space.

2. Describe the disadvantage of tabular presentation?
Only figures are indicated in tabular form. The attributes of those figures can not be mentioned in tables. Qualitative information of figures is not mentioned.

3. What are the three methods of representing data?
Three methods used to represent data are textual, tabular, and graphical presentation.

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