Statistics For Dummies (For Dummies (Math & Science))

Statistics is a hard subject in any textbook, I think Statistics for Dummies helped in advanced concepts, I would have been equally as pleased if the base concepts were dummied down just a little more. Dr. Rumsey should be commended on her ability to make a tough subject more understandable.

Tried to read this book to understand the purpose. While the book author tries to explain statistics, it lacked some hard core statistical theory. But the name explained why. It is excellent for people who want to get down to understand the theory.

With more than 55 years since my last math class, even Statistics for Dummies got beyond me. But I will persevere. I'm reading it for myself, so I don't have to pass a class. I find the writing down to earth and sometimes humorous. The first third of the book went well, then I hit a chapter over my head. Perhaps I should skip that and move on and see how it goes. But I do feel that I have more understanding of statistics than before I read the book. I would not hesitate to recommend it.

I bought this book because I was struggling in my statistics class. This book was a good supplement to the textbook that I was struggling to understand. Definitely not a substitute for the textbook but an excellent guide to help put everything in everyday context.

UPDATE: I'm knocking this down to three stars. After finishing a very tough statistics course, I started browsing this book again, and I realized that the section on "comparing two population proportions" makes no mention at all of having to meet a success-failure condition (which is mentioned for a single-proportion hypothesis test). In fact, the example regarding the drug Adderall does not meet this condition. You don't even have to calculate the pooled estimate to see this; we're told that 8 of 210 subjects receiving a placebo were "successes." This is an invalid test and the results are therefore meaningless. If the author sees this, I'd appreciate any feedback in the comments.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: I'm an old geezer who has found that he needs to dive back into statistics late in life. I never had any stats classes in college, though I did have calculus and one linear algebra class. Since then, I've learned a fair amount about statistics on my own, but that was a long time ago.

I originally got the same author's "Statistics Essentials for Dummies" book because I got the "Calculus Essentials for Dummies" book some months ago and was floored by how good it was. The essential statistics book let me down, largely because it moved too quickly, by which I mean the author sometimes waved a magic wand over a topic, threw out a formula, and that was that. I could plug in numbers but had no understanding.

This book suffers from that problem to a degree, but it provides a somewhat higher level of detail. A typical example is the standard deviation. Like many beginner texts, this one shows how to calculate it, but doesn't explain how it was developed, who came up with the idea for it, or why. The author does mention, at one point, that the distance from the point of inflection on a normal distribution curve to the mean is a single standard deviation, but that's as far as she goes. This is tantalizing; I would really love to understand *why* that is so. There is no time for that in a book of this scope. That means this is a beginning text for learning to apply statistical methods, not a book to explain the theory behind those methods.

Anyway, I plowed through the whole thing in the course of a headache-inducing weekend, and by that time, I had achieved my first milestone, being able to compute a simple linear regression. Because I moved so fast, there are doubtless some concepts that haven't stuck permanently, and I'll need to review. But the fact remains that, in a single weekend, I got through random variables, binomial and normal distributions, hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, z-tables, t-tables, and finally, linear regression. I was one happy geezer when I closed the book.

So it was worth the modest purchase price. And it presented a relatively painless introduction to the topic, without on the one hand diving into abstract mathematical proofs (there are no proofs of any kind), or on the other, leaping over large topics with no explanation whatever.

At least one other reviewer noted that the book is repetitive. That's true. For example, the author harps on the dangers of not investigating surveys and polls you read about in the press far too often. If you didn't already know not to do that, you probably wouldn't be interested in learning statistics anyway. These and other oft-repeated topics could have been replaced by more substantive examples and explanations.

But I can apply all of the principles and formulas described in the book--in fact, I did, several times, while reading it--and I've gotten a good bootstrap on learning statistics. My personal goal is to go far beyond this book, to learn about machine learning, and apply those concepts both in R and in programming. But to get there, I had to start with the basics. I think this was a good, but maybe not great, place to start. I have now bought Statistics for Dummies II, because it covers other topics, including logistic regression, that I'm interested in.

Statistics for Dummies is the first "Dummies" series book I've purchased, and it was absolutely excellent! Deborah Rumsey (the author) did an outstanding job of making statistics relevant and meaningful by using everyday examples. No only that, but she just has a way of capturing you and holding your attention. She does an excellent job of breaking the details down so you can understand the basic concepts.

I really like the examples she uses in describing the details of statistics b/c the examples are things you see on TV or read on-line everyday. Now when an ad or article tries to sell you on something by quoting the results of surveys/polls, averages, percentiles, etc., you have a much better understanding of what's going on.

I highly recommend this book to anyone requiring a better understanding of statistics!

Very helpful explaining Statistical concepts. As a returning grad student, I found my subject text too general and complicated. "Statistics for Dummies" was an excellent second source. It is very well-written and easy to understand. I highly recommend this text for students and more importantly, returning students.

It reached a bit late. the book is well explained and is good for any one interested in learning statistics.
However I was expecing to read something on Chi square and anova as well.
These are dealt in second book.
Otherwise it is very good book
thanks for asking my comments.

Overall a good introduction to statistics. The concepts are explained clearly, and common misconceptions and pitfalls are pointed out. However, progression is sometimes slow because everything is spelled out so meticulously.

I bought the book with the expectation that it will help me prepare for my upcoming semester class in basic statistics. After reading all of the text, I feel it has prepared me very well. I feel very confident in my abilities to transpose the information from this text to the University's classroom lecture and textbook. I highly recommend buying if interested in the subject.

This book is a very good review of basic statistics in the usual 'dummies' fashion. It has humorous vignettes and fun ways of demonstrating different topics. It covers very basic information, including probability, p-values, and correlation. It is a prelude to the author's subsequent book "Statistics II for Dummies".

I purchased this book to review statistics in preparation for a business school course in statistical modeling and forecasting. I had not taken statistics for > 20 years and I believe that this book was a good refresher. I am moving onto the follow-up text now and hope that it will be as helpful and easy to follow as this one.

I don't think you can go wrong with this book if you want a good review of statistics!

I’m very dissatisfied with this purchase. It was my understanding that I was purchasing a brand new book, hence the hefty price tag, and when I received this book today, the cover is all scratched up and bent. I’m so upset that I spent this much on a damaged book.

Save your money....take a class....this stuff is so esoteric and complicated that you need someone who gets it to explain it to you with good examples....Also, if you are trying to get a leg up before you go to stats class, don't! Go to class, listen and ask questions.....

If you are a dummy, this book is definitely not for you.....