6 Reasons Why Writing Skills Matter When Analyzing Big Data

Big data analysis is one of the most in-demand professions today since companies and organizations have recognized the importance of collecting and understanding information that their customers are making. Analyzing big data is a demanding job that requires the analyst to have a wide range of skills and substantial experience to do it with confidence. And, while skills like SQL, R, and Python are among the top priorities, having great writing skills can significantly improve your data analysis performance.

But, what is the connection between analyzing big data and having excellent writing skills? Why do writing skills matter in this case? To help you understand, we’ve put together a list of 6 reasons why improving your writing skills will help you be a better data analyst.

1. Critical Thinking

Data analysis is primarily used to find answers to the right questions and help people make data-informed decisions. To ask the right questions and look for the right solutions, you need critical thinking skills.

Critical thinking implies:

• conceptualizing available information

• making smart assumptions

• evaluating the current situation

You may not know it, but all of this is a requirement when practicing any type of writing – whether it's writing a report, a business proposition, or a case study. Writing helps you learn about the process of critical thinking and enables you to use this in data analysis. 

2. Storytelling

It may sound a bit too poetic from your technological point of view, but data analysis is a form of storytelling. You need to be able to:

• tell a story using data

• share convincing facts

• build-up to a conclusion

Just like in writing, you have to keep your audience engaged and actively involved in what you're saying. If they're not able to follow the storyline, they won't trust your analytical reports.

Thus, improving your writing skills will help you learn about storytelling and organizing information to keep the audience fully involved.

3. Communication

As a data analyst, you need to constantly communicate with many people – from your colleagues to stakeholders and data suppliers. Professional and smooth communication will help you share information the right way and finish every project successfully.

Proper communication is similar to writing for a specific audience. You need to know:

• who’s your audience

• what language do they speak/vocabulary do they understand

• what do they expect from you

• what’s the best way for you to deliver specific information

 

If you practice and improve your writing, you'll adopt all of these strategies and learn how to communicate your messages more clearly – both in writing and data analysis.

4. Research

Research is an essential part of both writing and data analysis. Learning how to conduct proper research and recognize the information that matters is one of the key skills you need to have.

Writing will help you organize your research process, divide it into meaningful tasks, and get the most out of the information you have available.

Then, you get to transfer these skills to your data analysis and make sure you're fully prepared for each new project ahead.

5. Technical Writing

Data analysts mostly work with numbers, figures, and charts. But, more often than not they need to create written reports of their work and submit those to clients, stakeholders, or superiors.

If a data analyst doesn't have the required skills for technical and business writing, their overall effort can be diminished. They need to know how to:

• organize information

• build an argument

• explain processes

This is why writing and data analysis are so closely tied together. You can seek help from Ultius while you’re still practicing and working on your business and technical writing. 

6. Information Management

The job of a data analyst is not just to collect and process data but also to organize it in different datasets and structure databases properly. This is yet another skill that you can boost and practice by improving your writing skills.

Every piece of written content needs to be well-organized and structured to make sense. Different pieces of information go together to form an argument or state a fact. Learning how to manage information will help you learn how to better deal with big data.

Final Thoughts

Writing skills are extremely helpful and beneficial for all data analysts – no matter their age or years of experience. They help data analysts develop a specific set of skills needed in their everyday communication and work with different people and clients.

Hopefully, our 6 reasons why writing skills are essential when analyzing big data will inspire you to start practicing writing and improve your overall performance as a data analyst.