variety is the SPSS of life

Following are some tips on using SPSS--

Unless otherwise indicated, always use the student versions of datasets for work in this class.

Note:  Pollock's Companion uses the full data sets rather than the student versions and so, if you are working problems in tandem with him, your student data set results will vary slightly from his results.

The reviewing pane on the SPSS viewer output file can be manipulated.  By clicking on a yellow procedure line, you can delete output you don't want to keep.  Click, drag, and drop motions can be used to reorder the output.  Output titles can also be edited.

After transforming data, it is always safer to save the initial dataset (e.g., World.sav) under a new name (World2.sav).  This is the best strategy because you can always go back to an earlier, uncorrupted dataset if you mess up in the course of your work.

It is absolutely vital that you check transformed variables against the original variables to make sure that SPSS processed the changes as you intended.

Because opening and printing SPSS output files (*.spo) require using a machine that has a compatible version of SPSS, it is wisest to save output files in another format using EXPORT in the menu bar.  I believe versions 11-plus of SPSS allow you to export output as an HTML file.  Even better, if available in your version of SPSS, is to use EXPORT to save the file in MS Word where the material can be manipulated all the way to the Gates of Hell.  To do so, from the standard SPSS output file,

• go to File
• select Export
• at File Type specify Word/RTF
• choose whether to export the entire document, charts only, or without charts
• use Browse to select a destination and file name
• and, uh, click OK

On a related point, since things do go crash in the night (and the day), it is prudent to regularly save to some device the output file as you are working.