Intro Stats [Hardcover]

Richard D. De Veaux (Author), Paul F. Velleman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201709104 | ISBN-13: 978-0201709100 | Publication Date: May 6, 2003 | Edition: Bk&CD-Rom

The short, teachable chapters and approachable, colloquial style of Intro Stats has created excitement among reviewers and class testers! Students learn how to think statistically, show proper application of techniques, and tell others what they have learned. They also learn the common misuses and misconceptions of statistical thinking.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Richard De Veaux holds degrees in Civil Engineering (B.S.E. Princeton), Mathematics (A.B.Princeton), Physical Education (M.A. Stanford; Specialization in Dance) and Statistics (Ph.D., Stanford). He has taught at the Wharton School, the Princeton University School of Engineering, and, since 1994, has been a professor in the Mathematics and Statistics Department of Williams College. He has won numerous teaching awards including a "Lifetime Award for Dedication and Excellence in Teaching" from the Engineering Council at Princeton. He has won both the Wilcoxon and Shewell awards (twice) from the American Society for Quality and was elected fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1998. Dick was Program Chair for the 2001 Joint Statistics Meeting in Atlanta (Aug. 2001). Dick has been a consultant for nearly 20 years for such companies as Hewlett-Packard, Alcoa, First USA Bank, Dupont, Pillsbury, Rohm and Haas, General Electric, and Chemical Bank.

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Paul Velleman has taught statistics at Cornell University for 22 years. He holds an A.B. from Dartmouth College in Mathematics and Social Science, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University in Statistics, where he studied with John Tukey. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, past Chair of its Statistical Computing Section, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has been awarded the EDUCOM medal for innovative uses of computers in teaching statistics. He is the co-author of the book ABC's of Exploratory Data Analysis. He is the author and designer of the multimedia statistics CD-ROM, ActivStats, and the developer of the award-winning statistics program, Data Desk, and the internet site, Data And Story Library (DASL), which provides datasets for teaching statistics.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 648 pages
• Publisher: Addison Wesley; Bk&CD-Rom edition (May 6, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201709104
• ISBN-13: 978-0201709100
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 8.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #675,137 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars (Almost) Math-less Stats, June 16, 2003

By 

eileen (Winter Springs, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Intro Stats (Hardcover)

This is a well-organized, nicely put-together textbook, with lots of step-by-step examples to give you a good base of understanding and lots of problems and section reviews to allow you to apply and extend that understanding. If you're intimidated by math, this textbook will go a long way toward easing your fears, and if you're a lover of math, you'll learn a lot about Statistics and be highly entertained along the way.
Although an introductory calculus class was a prerequisite for the course I took using this text, the only time integrals and complicated formulas showed up was in footnotes or the occasional homework problem. In general, the book aims to teach through real world examples and applications, not through pages of potentially intimidating to-be-memorized equations and formulas. As a result, the "math" parts of the book (you can't really do Statistics without math) are hidden, so that you are often using "math" without realizing it.
I especially liked the book's listing of instructions, for a variety of Statistics software packages, about how to do on the computer whatever you'd just learnt in a chapter. There are some "do by hand" problems, but just as many "use the computer" problems--helpful, given that any time most of us will be using Statistics again will be for a job or for research and will involve computer software.
There are all sorts of random facts that break up the practically inevitable "ugh" feeling of reading a textbook. In addition, the writing is very clear and informal, without lots of technical jargon (what little there is is clearly explained first--no wondering in Chapter 15 what that darned "r," which you've been seeing since Chapter 6, means). When reading, I always felt the authors were talking to me through the page, which made reading go faster and more pleasantly. (The short chapters help, too.)
I also found the "What can go wrong?" sections at the end of each chapter useful, especially when we got to interpreting data: several times, I would try to do a homework problem, then go back to the chapter and realize I'd made a beginner's mistake and done exactly what I wasn't supposed to do. The authors know what first-time Statistics students are thinking, and they do a good job of steering you along the right course.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good stuff!, March 22, 2004

By 

B. Yankiver (Boston) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Intro Stats (Hardcover)

This actually is a fantastic textbook.

De Veaux and Velleman are realists; they know that you don't want to read everything. They have taken the liberty of highlighting important parts of their explanations. (They also highlighted a bit of advice recommending that students read more than just the highlighted text-they have a good sense of humor that shows up throughout the book.) The authors also provide a fantastic summary of "Key Concepts" at the end of each chapter.

Also, they have clearly gone to great lengths to find interesting topics to use in their exercises. There are very few mind numbing homework problems. You know the type: "In the following data about the most frequently purchased brand of toenail clippers..."
How about a question like this: What is the likelihood that reading a randomly selected example question will be more painful that attempting to swallow the textbook it came from? If you're selecting from <u>Intro Stats</u>, put down your fork and knife, because De Veaux and Velleman have gathered some topics that I think most people will genuinely find interesting. Such topics include: drug use among teenagers, stance on the death penalty, changes in average marriage age, and many others.

I've never felt compelled to review a textbook before, but this one is worth it. It's good stuff, my friends. Good stuff!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An authoritative book written by master teachers, May 4, 2008

By 

R. M. Pruzek "stats professor" (Albany, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Intro Stats (3rd Edition) (Hardcover)

As a long-time professor of statistics with experience teaching introductory statistics to hundreds of students over many years, using many textbooks, I want to go on record that this is a wonderful book. The authors are hugely prepared, both as far as the statistical concepts and methods are concerned, but also with respect to instruction. They have learned what to do, and what not to do; they have made difficult concepts as simple as is they can (remembering Einstein's great principle: every explanation should be as simple as possible, but not simpler). All the key concepts and methods that really need to be covered are here, and the book is tied to the real world by repeated references to meaningful applied problems. For years I despaired that I would never find a book that had the great qualities I wanted to see in a book that introduces statistics, but this book comes as close as any I have seen. You won't go wrong using this book to learn statistics, nor to teach it!