On Dec 23, 9:57*pm, Ross wrote:
Just curious...I recently came across the formula
=Sum(C3:C3). *What's it doing? *Why not just say =C3?

Or at least =SUM(C3)?

I can think of several reasons. The first and foremost: we find a
lot of people who think they must put every expression in some
function call. I don't know where that's coming from. Probably some
"For Dummies" book ;-).

However, there are a number of reasonable reasons for writing such
formulas. For example, =SUM(C3) will be 0 even if C3 is text, whereas
=C3 simply duplicates the text. (Alternative: the N() function.)
=SUM(C3:C3) might have been the result of a wider range that was pared
down by deleting rows or columns. If you start with =SUM(C3:C24) and
delete the rows C4:C24, you end up with =SUM(C3:C3).