How to Use multiple cells as a single Excel COUNTIF variable

New to Microsoft Excel? Looking for a tip? How about a tip so mind-blowingly useful as to qualify as a magic trick? You're in luck. In this MS Excel tutorial from ExcelIsFun, the 269th installment in their series of digital spreadsheet magic tricks, you'll learn how to get criteria from four (4) different cells and combine (join) them into one criterion for the COUNTIF function.