ANOVA - Transformed data vs. normal distribution

A study of crime rates was recently taken in three cities in the United States. Neighborhoods of size 1000 were randomly sampled from three different cities (populations): New York, LA, and Washington. The number of crimes occurred in the last five years in each neighborhood were recorded. The average annual income in each neighborhood was also recorded as an index of financial well-being. (The data are attached)

1. Inspect the data from each of the three cities and describe whether the distributions of the number of crimes and annual income. Test whether the distributions are normal.

**I assume I need to get a probability distribution fucntion from the data and then visually inspect whether the distributions appear normal. I guess my question here, is where do I begin with getting a PDF?

2. Test whether the logarithm or the square root of the data is normal. In each case measure how close the transformed data is to normal distribution.

***I don't even know where to begin here. Of what data do I get the log or square root of? Every data point? If so, then I guess I would need to generate the PDF again, (and again). But its the same as Question 1 - how do I fo that. And THEN how do I test it?

I guess I don't even know where to start!

Attached file(s):

Data.xls  View File