@ -40,9 +40,13 @@ To be able to answer your question with any kind of certainty, you need a good a
✅ After collecting and processing your data, take a moment to see if its shape will allow you to address your intended question. It may be that the data will not perform well in your given task, as we discover in our [Clustering](../../5-Clustering/1-Visualize/README.md) lessons!
### Selecting your feature variable
### Features and Target
A [feature](https://www.datasciencecentral.com/profiles/blogs/an-introduction-to-variable-and-feature-selection) is a measurable property of your data. In many datasets it is expressed as a column heading like 'date' 'size' or 'color'. Your feature variable, usually represented as `X` in code, represent the input variable which will be used to train model.
A [feature](https://www.datasciencecentral.com/profiles/blogs/an-introduction-to-variable-and-feature-selection) is a measurable property of your data. In many datasets it is expressed as a column heading like 'date' 'size' or 'color'. Your feature variable, usually represented as `y` in code, represents the answer to the question you are trying to ask of your data: in December, what **color** pumpkins will be cheapest? in San Francisco, what neighborhoods will have the best real estate **price**?
A target is a thing you are trying to predict. Target usually represented as `y` in code, represents the answer to the question you are trying to ask of your data: in December, what **color** pumpkins will be cheapest? in San Francisco, what neighborhoods will have the best real estate **price**? Sometimes target is also referred as label attribute.
### Selecting your feature variable
🎓 **Feature Selection and Feature Extraction** How do you know which variable to choose when building a model? You'll probably go through a process of feature selection or feature extraction to choose the right variables for the most performant model. They're not the same thing, however: "Feature extraction creates new features from functions of the original features, whereas feature selection returns a subset of the features." ([source](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_selection))
@ -68,7 +72,7 @@ Depending on your question and the nature of your data, you will choose a method
### Train a model
Armed with your training data, you are ready to 'fit' it to create a model. You will notice that in many ML libraries you will find the code 'model.fit' - it is at this time that you send in your data as an array of values (usually 'X') and a feature variable (usually 'y').
Armed with your training data, you are ready to 'fit' it to create a model. You will notice that in many ML libraries you will find the code 'model.fit' - it is at this time that you send in your feature variable as an array of values (usually 'X') and a target variable (usually 'y').