Customer Reviews

Practical Statistics Simply Explained (Dover Books Explaining Science)

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

 

 

If you only own one statistics book, this should be it! In than 20 years of working with laypeople, engineering and biology undergraduates and grad. students and medical students, this has proven to be the most reliable, intelligible and accessible single volume on how to treat experimental and observational data in a sound, statistically valid, way. Of particular value is a table in the back (Guide to Significance Tests) which takes a "leaf identification" approach to selection of the most appropriate test. Many good examples and problems with solutions makes this an excellent self study text.

Jonathan Black, Professor Emeritus, Clemson University.

Maybe you're just getting started as a stats user, maybe you're only an occasional user who doesn't want to relearn the whole field just to get quick answers. In either case, this book might be one of the best around.

The first half of the book is background: a little probability, a little bit about sampling and experimental design, a little about the most basic and common statistics (means, quartiles, etc).

The second half of the book offers a number of basic parametric and non-parametric significance tests. Langley describes each one, when it is applicable, and how to perform the calculations. He doesn't stray far into the slick computing tricks of the pre-calculator days, so the structure of each calculation stays reasonably clear.

The only real weakness in this book is its lack of index. That is especially incovenient because the tables, a staple of most stats books, are interleaved with the text. The table of contents is descriptive, but doesn't replace an index. The other problem, and not really a flaw in the book, is that it's easy to outgrow this text. Even moderately heavy stats users need a bit more theory and background, to allow meaningful adaptation to new conditions. The author has chosen an audience, though, and has addressed that audience and its needs very well. If your skills are beyond those of the intended reader, that's not a fault of the book.

Basic, clear, and reasonably broad - it's everything that an ordinary, casual stat user could want.

This book is really written to be useful practically, and in that sense it is very successful. It is also written very concisely, so it is likely that it will clear many doubts. However, there are almost no theoretical explanations at all. In this sense, it is not a book that contributes to the theoretical understanding of statistics; so don't expect to know more about theory of statistics using this book; instead get ``Principles of Statistics" by M.G.Bulmer. This is a book to keep on the desk to help do practical statistical calculations and make inferences.

I think I bought the wrong book. This is, of course, not the author's fault. The title makes clear - sort of - what one is buying into here. But - a logical question - does "practical" necessarily entail a COMPLETE ABSENCE of the theoretical? I mean, come now, no mathematical derivation even of the formula for standard deviation!?! I found myself in this and several other cases whilst engaged in this book turning away from it to Wikipedia for the required mathematics. At one point, Langley uses the analogy that you don't need to know how a car works in order to drive it. Well, no, but it's dashed useful to know how to change a spare tyre and check oil and fluid levels. Isn't it? Langley refuses to use even simple terms from maths like "absolute value"! This, despite the fact that in order to work through all the "Questions" provided here, as I now have, one must wade through vast amounts of multiplication and division etc. in order to gain what Langley calls a "nose" for statistics.

What to make of all these five star reviews praise the book for not taking calculator "short-cuts"? This all seems a bit like - what to call it - the Luddite approach. I wonder how many readers are actually going to use the tables for squares and square roots at the back of the book! There is absolutely no reason to do so if you understand the concept and possess a calculator. I defy anyone to give me a sensible argument not to ignore them! I can understand why Langley put the tables in here: The book was originally published in 1968! But these reviews were not. They were all written on electronic computers!

OK, you get the idea. Langley is a fun author - Some of his fictitious example problems made me laugh out loud! - And you can learn statistics, of a sort, through this book. But, really, unless you want to smash all calculators and the computer from which you are reading this review and hie yourself back to the Neolithic age, reading the book by candlelight, in order to determine if the difference in the number of antelope you've speared this year has statistical significance, I suggest you buy something more, ahem, 21st Century.

I got this book for my daughter to help her study for her business statistics class. She complained of not being able to understand some of the concepts and I certainly can't explain them since it has been 30 years since I last took statistics. She really likes the explanations as an adjunct to her course book. Hopefully, she will pass the class.

The other reviewers have pretty much said it all.
This book is very easy to read, very enjoyable even, but I find it a little verbose (not that this is necessarily a disadvantage).
It should be used as an introduction, to give you a strong intuition for the subject. So many books treat the notion of null hypothesis
too succinctly. This one does not and gives the subject the attention it deserves.
It's accessible to anyone with just high school mathematics.
Although the basic notions of probability are explained, this is in an informal manner.
As another reviewer said, this book does not deal with the rigorous foundations of Statistics, but should that not be left for a second course?

Needed this class for a quantitative class - because the book is old, the examples & methods (& humor) are a bit outdated, but main methods of statistics are under there somewhere.

The best stats book ever written. I found it in a used book store, and I will use it as the text in my intro stats course.