Editing applications

The present chapter provides a general overview of the applications for the editing and imputation process. It provides a framework for the general flow of the census or survey edit, from raw scanned or keyed data, through structure editing and content editing, to providing an edited dataset. Examples have been selected to illustrate which kinds of problems unedited data may present for users and why edited data are more useful. The chapter considers issues of keying and coding as related to the preliminary editing process. The chapter also considers general issues in computer editing along with guidelines on topics such as checking for validity and consistency. The two generic types of computer editing, entailing static imputation (cold deck) and dynamic imputation (hot deck) techniques, are reviewed in detail.

Related Subject(s): Population and Demography