[.ca] Statistics for the Utterly Confused, 2nd edition (ISBN 0071461930)

Not bad if you're truly utterly confused:
If you've never taken a basic stats class (or have forgotten it all, as most people do), then this book is a pretty good option. But if you need to learn or brush up on more than descriptive statistics, this would not be for you. This book helped me to get all the basic concepts clear in my mind again, but when I had real-world analysis to do, there wasn't enough meat. I was glad I read it, but really had no use afterwards.

Great for extra practice questions:
I just picked up this book tonight. It looks great for my purposes, as a math/stats tutor. I am always looking for books with lots of practice questions (and the nice thing is, this book includes true/false; multiple choice; short answer etc. -- very handy for testing students' conceptual knowledge) and this one is full of them! Also, I wanted a book that the tutors I train could use as a manual -- something without extra fluff, but with enough meat to make the concepts clear. I think this book is well-suited to that purpose: giving to mathematically-oriented people (like my tutors) who maybe don't have a lot of statistics knowledge and expecting them to be able to pick the material up easily. What is also helpful is the reference to the TI-83/84 calculators and the minitab output. As someone who learned how to do all this by hand, I sometimes find it disorienting to have to rely on computer output with no work on my part (since by doing the calculations, I actually understood what I was computing). It's helpful to have these alternate methods addressed and explained, as I suppose this technology is an evil I'm just going to have to get used to! :) It looks like the complaints about the first edition have been addressed in this new second edition. The chapter titles are quite clear. (However, I don't mind accurate chapter titles, even if dry or intimidating, since my staff will be using it as a reference -- and we actually DO need to be able to look up material according to the technical terms, and use ths vocabulary to help other students!) Also, previous reviewers have mentioned that the book left out some key topics such as F-tests, ANOVA etc. These topics are all in the second edition. So, as far as I can tell, this book should cover most intro level Stats I courses (at our Canadian universities, at least!) The link to the table of contents appears to show the first edition TOC. The second edition has an extra chapter (#15) which covers: 15-1 Comparing population means graphically 15-2 Some Terminology associated with ANOVA 15-3 The Hypothesis test of ANOVA 15-4 The Test Statistic and the F Distribution 15-5 One-Way or Single-Factor ANOVA Tests I do agree that it's a bit (and perhaps only a bit) less dense than a textbook, but I do like the "get right to the heart of it" approach to the material, as well as the loads of practice questions. But again, I'm looking for something that people who are already math-literate can use as a quick reference/teaching guide. The language is not exactly lay-person friendly, but as a curriculum writer myself, I know that's always a trade-off. You want to be true to the language and vocabulary of the material you're explaining, but at the same time, you're often dealing with an audience that doesn't really care too much about being that precise, so long as they get the idea. So what do you do? :) Jaisingh has chosen to keep more traditional (yes, technical/boring) definitions for these concepts for the most part. I don't condemn him for it, but people looking for definitions that don't require thought probably will. Students who are comfortable with math/English should not have significant difficulties tackling this book. Those who are "utterly confused" will likely not find this book as "hand-holding" as perhaps they'd like. Do face this book preparing to actually learn something, and learn the proper terminology for it and a bit of rigor. There are *tons* of explanations of terms and definitions throughout the book. And, in their attempt to be accurate, they do sacrifice some layperson-friendliness. If I could add one extra topic to this book it would be elementary combinatorics so that students could more easily compute probabilities that relied upon permutations or combinations to count the number of ways an event can happen vs. the number of events in the sample space. I know that this isn't always a part of a Stats class, but here in Ontario, Canada, our senior high school stats class ("Data Managment") involves a significant portion of this material. With this small addition, this book would cover our entire Gr. 12 Data Management course, and I wouldn't need another book to deal with combinatorics. Statistics tutors looking for something to add to their collection should definitely consider this book. I think it will be useful for tutoring both university Stats I as well as AP Statistics. What I will find most useful is all the definitions (which I suspect I'll have to break down, word-for-word and explain to the students, but at least they're there as a good reference), theorems and practice questions. I would not expect most of my students to be able to teach themselves from this book, but rather to be taught by a tutor using this book. The price is quite reasonable for the content and practice questions, and I have already warned one student who will be taking her Stats I next year at university that I expect her to buy this book. :) If you really are utterly confused by math, academic-style prose and/or statistics, then this is probably not the book to *teach* yourself with, but if you are taking a stats course, the problems alone should be worth the investment as extra practice.

Simple and Concise:
I bought the book looking for something to assist in prepping people for 6 Sigma training in the statistics of analyze phase. Many people have been out of school for a long time or never got into the statistics of 6 sigma before. The goal was to find a primer to help them over the hump before the training. I found this book to he helpful to me, and have to test it on someone less familar with statistics. What I liked about it is that it covered 90% of the topics I needed, ANOVA, multi-variate statistics, DOE, and non-parametrics are not included. It did provide a clear, concise description of the topics in a manner that should not lose non-mathematicans. It is not rigorous like a text book, but does a descent job of explaining things in lay language while attempting to bridge the gap between lay language and more correct useage. My search was not exhustive, but I like this book, and I know it helped one co-worker understand the basics in her college stats course. Where I found it a little weak is in describing the mathematical notations used (summation signs, etc.). It could have been a little stronger at translating the statistics in to practical useage in the real world.

Recommended:
For me, more revelant than "Stats for Dummies", the Utterly Confused stats book is more focused toward business stats. I found the Cliffs book a bit stiff, Dummies too loose and Utterly confused just about right. At least it helped decipher the Business Stats text book I was trying to wrap my arms around. There's no substitute for a Stats course, and the utterly confused stats book should help ease one into the lingo and nomenclature rather than suffer a head-on crash with syllabus and curriculum.

Don't take statistics without it.:
I took a statistics correspondence course for credit. The study guide made no sense to me. I finally got online and found this book. I was hesitant, because like the computer instructions you get, Statistic instructors think they are dummying it down for us but are only dummying it down for them. I was pleasantly surprised. I loved the quesions at the end. You are able to apply the knowledge immediately and get feedback. I received an A in the course, and not from the expensive study guide that I bought that was supposed to help me pass. Any average person who is required to take statistics should get this book. If it helped me, it will help anyone. Thanks Dr. Jaisingh