It is not uncommon to be handed a dataset without a lot of information as to where it came from, how it was collected, what the fields mean, and so on. In fact, it’s probably more common to receive data in this way than not. In many cases, the data has gone through many hands and multiple transformations since it was gathered, and nobody really knows what it all means anymore.
Bad Data Handbook: Cleaning Up The Data So You Can Get Back To Work
by Q. Ethan McCallum
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Chapter 2
Is It Just Me, or Does This Data Smell Funny?
by Kevin Fink