HOW TO PROCESS DATA.doc

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HOW TO PROCESS DATA
The human brain performs data processing whenever we make a decision. We draw from our memory the known facts about situation, and the probable results of various courses of action, and then we decide. We are usually not aware of the process but it does take place.
In a business, for example, many things are known: the names and address of employees, of the customers, and of the suppliers; the details of goods sold or stoked, their description, cost price and sales price; the number of vehicles owned or leased by the company, their registration numbers, age, capacities, the total expenditure and income of the company. This is data (plural of the Latin word datum) which means facts. It may be in the form of numbers, letters or symbols. Data processing, then, is the manipulating and using of facts.
The words data and information, are often used as synonyms, but in fact they should not be. Data, in itself, needs to be informative. Information is frequently referred to as distilled data or processed data. Data processing, then, is the production of information from data.
How does the computer help you manage that data, keep it up to date, and get what you need when you need it? A computer programmer, with that data, develops a series of instructions or orders for the computer to perform a particular task. This is what we call a program which has to be introduced into the computer by means of one of the input units. This unit will transmit that data as a series of electrical impulses into the memory of the computer where data is manipulated to give us the required information through one of the output units. To accomplish good information, normally several tasks have to be processed, then a set of tasks (programs) is called a job.
GALANTE, Terezinha Prado. Inglês para Processamento de Dados. 7.ª Ed. São Paulo, Editora Atlas, 1996.