Book Review: Statistics for Dummies by Deborah Rumsey

Statistics for Dummies is one of the well known books in the ‘For Dummies’ series; a series covering everything from Algebra to Windows Vista with a very surprising variety in between. Statistics for Dummies was first published in 2003, joined in 2007 by Intermediate Statistics for Dummies. It starts with a handy pull out ‘Cheat Sheet’ summarising common statistics and hypothesis tests, probably enough to scare the average first year student before they get to page 1…..Like all books in this series, it is well laid out with a lively style, eye catching headings and illustrations. There are very few formulae and plenty of examples which are easy to relate to, and though I would not recommend it as a statistics textbook, it would certainly help many students, particularly those on service courses, to grasp the concepts and see the wider picture. It might also inspire some of us with our lecture titles, provide some illustrative examples and give us some useful quotes such as “You can’t build any kind of lasting conclusions based on an anecdote, which is what a sample size of 1 really is.”…