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Data Science & Analytics vocabulary · Exploratory Analysis

Sanity check

Meaning in data science & analytics, with examples

phraseCommon term

In data science & analytics, sanity check means: A quick, simple test to make sure a result is reasonable before you trust it, for example checking that a total matches a figure you already know.

In Turkish: mantık kontrolü, makullük kontrolü, sağlama

How it is used

Very common and informal in data teams. You do or run a sanity check, or 'sanity-check' a number. People ask colleagues 'Can you sanity-check this before I send it?' when they want a second pair of eyes.

Example sentences

  1. As a sanity check, I compared our revenue total with the finance report.

  2. Could you sanity-check these numbers before I send them to the board?

Common collocations

  • do a sanity check
  • quick sanity check
  • sanity-check the numbers
  • pass a sanity check
  • data qualityHow accurate, complete, consistent and up to date data is, and therefore how far it can be trusted when people make decisions.
  • summary statisticsA small set of numbers that describe a dataset at a glance, such as the count, mean, median, minimum, maximum and standard deviation of each column.
  • outlierA value that is very far from most of the other values in a dataset, for example one order of 50,000 dollars among orders of around 40 dollars.
  • caveatA warning or limitation that the audience should keep in mind when using a result, such as a small sample, missing data or a recent tracking change.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Exploratory Analysis

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