The extra comma creates an additional value of 0 for the AVERAGE function.
AVERAGE is the Sum of the listed values divided by the Count of the listed
values. In this case, the Sum remains the same, since you're only adding 0,
but the count is increased by 1.

Let's say your values on your "specimen data" sheet are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and
7. The sum of this range is 28. Divided by the number of values, 7. The
AVERAGE would be 4.

But, adding that extra comma, you now have the values 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
and 0. The sum is still 28, but the number of values is now 8. Thus, the
AVERAGE would be 3.5.

Make sense?

HTH,
Elkar


"SYerby" wrote:

I have the following simple funtion in a spreadsheet and noticed that it did
not produce the anticipated result when checking my numbers:

=AVERAGE('specimen data'!B5,'specimen data'!B11,'specimen
data'!B17,'specimen data'!B23,'specimen data'!B29,'specimen
data'!B35,'specimen data'!B41,)

The comma after the B41 cell seems to produce a different answer than
anticipated and correct answer is produced when the comma is removed:

=AVERAGE('specimen data'!B5,'specimen data'!B11,'specimen
data'!B17,'specimen data'!B23,'specimen data'!B29,'specimen
data'!B35,'specimen data'!B41)

How is the last comma in the first function affecting the calculation? Is
it including other cells, or is it ignoring cells in the function?

Thanks,

Scott