Customer Reviews

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Statistics, 2nd Edition

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Overall, I think this is an excellent book on statistics; both as an initial primer for beginners and as a review for those non-statistician who have some background in the field. It is well written and flows nicely. The author does a very good job of presenting complex issues in a simple and understandable manner using real life scenarios. He then builds on the simple concepts to higher levels of complexity. It goes without saying that, as with any endeavor that deals with mathmatics, it is essential that the reader perform the exercises at the end of each chapter. This assures a reasonable understanding of the topic before moving on to the next. Contrary to one of the other reviewers, I found the contents and index sufficient. I could easily find specific topics that I was interested in pursuing without having to read large sections. Based on these impressions, I would have given the book 5 stars. However, the mathmatical errors and misstatements, while small for a book of 385 pages, are substantial when you consider the difficulty a beginner might have trying to figure out such concepts as "hypothesis testing" and "z scores". I could easily see a novice spending hours trying to understand or figure out answers to questions when the information given is inaccurate. I would still recommend this book highly, especially for beginners. However, I would suggest that they go to the website that list the errors before starting the book. I would also recommend that the author reference this site at the top of the first page of chapter one in the third edition of the book.

This really helped me get up to speed on statistics quickly. The Excel formulas were most useful for real life application. Some books are worth several times there price for what you get out of them. For me, this is one such book. I found the examples easy to follow considering the complex subject matter. Five stars.

Topics covered include: standard deviation, median, mode, proablity theory, Chebyshev's theorem, frequency distributions, Bayes theorem, binomial and Poisson probability distributions, inferential statistics, standard error of population, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, chi-square, and ANOVA.

I attempted to use this as a supplement to a graduate level course in statistics. While the first 3 chapters are an enjoyable read, the book falls short for lack of clarification on z-tables for left and right tail questions. The result of this are wrong answers within some the summary conclusions - perhaps the author himself was confused? I will be returning the book and looking for something a little bit more straightforward, and less whimsical.

I'm an MBA student and I'm taking a course in statistics. We don't have any book only powerpoint slides from the professor. I'm a beginner in statistics and was never good i math so I looked at Amazon.com for a book that could teach me in the simplest way how to get through the course. I have before bought Idiot's guide books and they are great. This statistic book fulfills my expectations and far more. I have learned so much that I'm beginning to like statistics! I'm not afraid of it. It's really fun and Bob the author is great in connecting the examples with our everyday life and he's also got great humor which makes the book more fun to study. There's every thing you need concerning statistics in this book. It's a best buy and I would not want to be without it.

If you are taking an online course in statistics, you need this book.
If you are taking a statistics class where the professor is speaking over your head, you need this book.
Dr. Donnelly breaks it down in a way that is understandable to the most liberal arts minded student. He cuts away all the clutter that most books have that are unnecessary, cuts to the chase and makes you laugh while you learn. This book is the next best thing to a personal tutor. I understood all the topics he presented, and it was perfectly in line with my Introduction to Statistics class.

I saved stats for one my last undergrad courses, dreading it as only the utterly math phobic can appreciate. To make matters worse, I had accidently enrolled in the weighty accelerated course. Failure seemed imminent. I rec'd my text and felt the gripping panic wash over me in waves as I leafed through it, gazing uncomprehendingly at the horror about to unfold. The only thing worse than failure would be to fail and have to take stats AGAIN! I ordered several stats support books off amazon with expedited delivery. Now for the good part....one of them was Bob's book. The greatest thing about the book is that the concepts are much easier to understand than the arid expanse of the texts. Bob explains challenging concepts and formulas with a lot of humor and in very simple ways. I would read the text (heeeelllp!),then read Bob's book and it would almost always be clear! A second reading would invariably do it. eureka! The only thing I believe would enhance the book are a few more examples/illustrations. I worked hard and thanks to The complete idiot's guide, I went into my final exam with a 99% average (oh, yeah) and very little anxiety :-) A graduate level of statistics is coming up soon and I expect to blow the dust off The Complete Idiot's Guide to Stats again. Thanks Bob!!!! This is the most user friendly stats lifesaver I have found. And believe me, I looked.

This is easily the best book on statistics I've ever encountered. Previous books that I've used have generally left me confused and frustrated. This is the first book that I've found that lays out statistics in a straight forward coherent manner. It's very readable and easy to follow. The author uses a limited number of simple, but clear, examples to explain the different statistical topics. Initially I started reading the book to solve a work problem, but I continued reading it because it made the subject so easy (well okay, maybe not easy -but definitely accessible). The book also gives some helpful tips on how to use Excel's suite of statistical tools (which can take a lot of the pain out of analyzing data!).

The Basic Practice of Statistics w/CD-ROM Here's the link to the textbook we use in class. This is my second run at statistics and have been frustrated with our textbook, as it doesn't explain what I need to know. I went to Barnes and Noble and extracted all the stats books written for those of us who don't "get it." The Complete Idiot's Guide to Statistics seemed to be just the ticket for me. The author, Bob Donnelly, Jr., uses his family to explain statistics in a very real manner. He even counts the number of showers his sons take! He inserts a picture of his wife and asks us to vote on a ponytail she bought. She must be a very good sport! He brings statistics home. To make things better, he gives a link where we can ask him questions or make comments. I asked him a question about using my TI-84 calculator and he answered me within 24 hours. He's going to write another book, using that calculator! This current book is saving my bacon! I'll give it a great recommendation!

Last semester, I had the bad luck to get stuck in a statistics class taught by a nice, but thoroughly incompetent, professor. I seriously believed I was going to either have to drop the class or risk failing it, because nothing that was taught to us made any sense (and our textbook was an abysmal failure too). In desperation I sought out alternative sources of information, and came across this book. It managed to transform the disastrous notes I had into something coherent. I relied heavily on this book over the instruction and text, and managed to achieve an "A" in a class that was otherwise doomed to a "C" at best. The book unfortunately doesn't cover 2-way ANOVA or non-parametric testing, but if the author (hint hint) were to write a follow-up stat book covering more advanced topics, you can be sure I'd purchase it.

This book makes you laugh when you want to cry trying to learn statistics! Of course, you do have to learn how to work problems for statistics, but the author uses humorous analogies that we can all relate to as he explains the material. I used this in combination with Instant Cert Academy flashcards & online videos to pass the Principles of Statistics DSST. 400 is passing and I scored a 424 with 2 weeks of study! Anyone with a school that accepts statistics dsst where it's required for your degree should definately look into testing out which I think is WAY easier than doing the actual class. With the help of this book I tested out of statistics which is great because I don't think I could stand 8-14 weeks of being graded on this! The grading curve on the DSST is VERY forgiving. I knew the theories, but I could only work the basic problems and I still passed!

Again, this book is a great supplement/ study guide for a statistics class but also to test out of statistics. I'm so glad I did, I know people that were going crazy for weeks trying to pass stats for their degree or taking it 2x. I studied for 2 weeks & tested out completely...I'm so happy!!! You need to read it, but this is a great book. But, if I had to take a statistics course I would DEFINATELY use this book to help understand/ solidify the concepts.