Customer Reviews

Statistics The Easy Way (Barron's Easy Way)

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

 

 

This book teaches you, at an elementary level, how statistical formulas are derived and how they are used. This book will be especially useful for people with limited knowledge in calculus.

Without using much calculus, nearly every formulas are presented with very readable proofs (e.g., derivation of multinomial formula, derivation of Poisson distribution formula, derivation of moment generating functions, derivation of Chi-square distribution formula, proof of Markov's inequality, proof of Chebyshev's inequality, proof of central limit theorem, and many many others).

If you are unhappy with other statistics books that merely show you formulas and make you plug in numbers, or books written in mathematics beyond your education, then this book is for you. Read the introduction and you will get an idea. It is an amazing piece of pedagogic work.

There are, however, many typos in the book (I found 30 typos and reported to publisher). Further, there is no web site for errata correction. If it were not for errata, I would have given 5 stars.

If you find this book too elementary for you, I would recommend "An introduction to mathematical statistics and its applications, 3rd Edition, Larson & Marx", which was the textbook for an introductory statistics course that I took.

I used this book to prepare for the probability and combinatorics sections of a Discrete Math exam, so my comments only involve the corresponding parts of the book.

The cover says, "All the essentials in one clear volume", and yes, it does seem to cover the essentials. Of note however, and why I'm writing this review, is that the book also offers some interesting C & C++ code snippets which relate to selected statistics problems. These may be of interest to some students trying to learn these languages along with statistics.

Also noteworthy is that Appendix 2 offers a table of statistical functions available in Microsoft Excel, which many of us may not have been aware of.

This book is confusing because 1) it often (usually?) skips several steps in its mathematical explanations, 2) it sometimes does not explain the reasons for its conclusions, and 3) some of its explanations are based on previously introduced information that the reader has likely already forgotten, which would be okay if only the book reminded the reader of the previously introduced information. Space wasted on cute comments could have been better used to include missing steps and information. Some steps require knowledge of calculus. "The Easy Way" is a misleading title.

I purchased this "Easy Way" because the Geometry The Easy Way is one of the best books I've ever seen as a compilation of Geometry information and practice problems. However, I think that this book would be confusing for a student. I taught high school for 5 years, and currently own a tutoring company. If you want a statistics overview, I recomend looking somewhere else.

This isn't the most scientific statistics book that you can buy, but, for an introductory student (but it helps if you've had some calculus), this is a great book. It not only explains the basics, but it gives light-hearted examples that won't leave you mind spinning for all the strange greek letters or wild examples that assume you enjoy the technospeak of scientists in their ivory towers. Pick up this book for 1/100 of a dollar and you will have spent your money well.

This book has a wonderful breezy style that makes it a joy to delve into this difficult subject. It takes you from elementary probability to some of the deepest results of statistical theory. It's comprehensive yet rigorous, and laid out so that people without the requisite calculus can still gain a working knowledge of the essentials. Highly recommended.

Mr. Downing's explanations are messy and attempt to reach a very diverse audience of readers. It addresses the mathematically proficient and the mathematically challenged as if that would not produce confusion for at least one group. I bought this book with the goal of getting a clear introduction to statistics. This book didn't do it for me. This book doesn't have the answers to all the exercises. Some of the exercises require that you write a program in BASIC or C++. You need to have a good grasp algebra, calculus, EXCEL, BASIC and C++ if you want to get the most out of this book.

I bought this book to help me prepare to present a 2-hour seminar on basic statistics for PhD-level laboratory scientists at my company. Most scientists I know have never taken a formal course in statistics, but they have learned how to do some calculations with one software package or another, often proving once again that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. My own training consists of only one undergraduate course many years ago and more or less constant reinforcement since then, so I do not claim to be an expert but sort of a hands-on practical user. My goal in the seminar was to familiarize the researchers with the underlying principles and demystify the procedures that we use on a daily basis, how to select appropriate tests, and how to think about the results. The book provided just the kind of serious but less than hyper-mathematical material that I needed to brush up on and that was appropriate for this audience. I should say that our focus is mainly on ANOVA and non-parametric methods. My comments are not necessarily relevant to the other sections (e.g. opinion polls, regression), but I suspect that they apply there as well. The seminar was very well received and I was reasonably well prepared for the fairly challenging questions I received.

There has to be a book SOMEWHERE that describes statistics for the layman. Again, this is not it.