There are times when the values in a variable are not the way you need them for your analyses.  You might need to change the type data in a column (i.e,. change from character to numeric) or need to reorder or rearrange the values that you currently have in one or more variables.  

This is generally referred to as recoding a variable.  Recoding into a different variable transforms an original variable into a new variable. That is, the changes do not overwrite the original variable; they are instead applied to a copy of the original variable under a new name. 

The following provides a couple of different ways to recode a variable.