Spreadsheet structure silently enforces categorical exclusivity on researchers.

Evidence

By far the most common procedure is to have one column that gives which type the observation is coded as, often from 1 to the maximum number of types. This implies, virtually by definition, that one should be doing things in a mutually exclusive fashion. When that becomes problematic, often research teams will add a second column for “secondary coding” for a second type for each observation. Following the recommendations of this chapter, the procedure should be to have one column for each concept or type and then the degree of membership of the observation for that particular type or concept. This explicitly allows for membership in multiple types with no limit to the number or amount of overlap. — Gary Goertz, Social Science Concepts and Measurement, 1342

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the funded article’s claim that classification systems constitute infrastructures with political consequences — here a mere columns-and-rows layout constrains what findings are possible.
• SEED: Essay angle: ‘Your Spreadsheet Is a Theory’ — how data-table conventions (one type per row, secondary-coding columns) encode and defend an exclusivity assumption.