Making Sense of Statistics: A Conceptual Overview [Paperback]

Fred Pyrczak (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 170 pages
• Publisher: Pyrczak Publishing; 4 edition (January 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1884585701
• ISBN-13: 978-1884585708
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #407,155 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This is a Supplement, not a Statistics text., April 16, 2009

By 

J. Hanley "Christian Anarchist" (Michigan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Making Sense of Statistics: A Conceptual Overview (Paperback)

The critical reviews of this book all note its shortcomings, but without understanding its purpose. This is not a stand-alone statistics text. If you try to use it as such, all the criticisms of other reviewers are applicable.

This is a supplemental book, designed to be used alongside a statistics text. That is why it has no equations--those are already found in a stats text. This book is a useful addition to stats texts for students who find the formulas overwhelming, and for those cases where the texts do not explain the concepts intuitively. The latter is precisely what this book provides--intuitive explanations for the mathematical concepts behind statistics.

It is not a perfect book, which is why I can't give it a full five stars. But it is quite useful for its particular purpose, and the critics either have inadvertantly not recognized that purpose or, being math snobs with no patience for the less mathematically adept, they have intentionally (but wrongly) disdained that purpose.

In summary, this book is useful for those who need to take statistics but are not wholly comfortable with math.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars At too a simple a level to be widely used, February 18, 2007

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Making Sense of Statistics: A Conceptual Overview (Paperback)

While this book does conform to the title segment "A Conceptual Overview", I am not sure that it satisfies an existing market niche. I have been teaching basic statistics at the college level for decades and am used to equations and formulas in a statistics book. Therefore, I will admit that my background may be causing some bias in my outlook.
There is only one formula in this book, the expression for standard deviation and it is in an appendix. And unfortunately, it is not well presented; the sigma notation is used without being well explained. The coverage is thorough; all of the topics that I cover in my basic statistics class are in this book. But covered in such a superficial manner that I find it difficult to believe that the reader will really be learning anything about what statistics really is. I don't see how it is possible to really learn what a mean is without seeing it in formula form.
The only people that I could possibly recommend this book to would be those who have no idea at all what statistics is and what it is used for. Other than that, there seems no other place where it can be used.

5.0 out of 5 stars Cheaper than in the bookstore, October 16, 2010

By 

Darwin - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Making Sense of Statistics: A Conceptual Overview (Paperback)

This was a book I needed for Business school. It's much cheaper here new than a used one was at school.