Customer Reviews

A Dictionary of Statistics (Oxford Paperback Reference)

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Two English statisticians have compiled this list of terms, abbreviations, famous probabilists and statisticians that is accessible to experts, beginners and practitioners in all fields that use statistical methods and probability. It is very current and competitive with other dictionaries on this topic including the one that Cambidge University Press puts out. A nice feature of the handy paperback book is its low price. Published in 2002 it is the most current dictionary of its type and includes terms from computational statistics and operations research. So you will find terms like simplex methods and figures from operations research like George Dantzig in addition to famous statisticians such as R. A. Fisher and probabilists like Markov and Kolmogorov. It also contains many names of statistical societies, software packages and professional journals

I find it to be a handy reference and I own two copies.

Since this statistics dictionary is only middling in size, I expected to not always find the word I was looking for. But it has not failed me yet. Not only have Upton & Cook been very judicious in their choice of words, but their explanations are consistently clear and have illustrations when needed. For an undergrad who is going beyond a first-year course in statistics, this is the dictionary to get.

I browse quite a lot though, usually ending up not finding anything worth buying. However this book offered the right amount of exhaustivity and technicalities, suitable for a businessman like myself. It also contains interesting material on the history of statistics. On some occasions, I would have appreciated to have more mathematical details, e.g. re entries related to regression.