This workshop covers the theory and practice of preparing humanities data for analysis. Even while being notoriously difficult to work with, we will explore how the mess of humanities data is actually what conveys a wealth of information. We will discuss the affordances and tradeoffs inherent in data cleaning with the humanities, when it is worth doing, and when it is worth maintaining a sense of organized chaos that our materials demand. Practical discussions will include working with dates, irregular spellings, and data organization. We will use OpenRefine to practice working with data and use examples drawn from the real world. Participants should come to the workshop with OpenRefine installed on their computer.

This workshop is part of the DLA Workshop Series as well as the APLNG 597-004 Foundations in Digital Humanities course.