This book focuses on the more subjective side of statistics - the art of data analysis. Using a handful of fun examples, each chapter asks a single question, illustrating the different ways that questions can be answered with techniques taught in any introductory statistics course. This book introduces topics as way to answer specific questions, emphasizing statistics' role as a problem solving tool. The author does not provide theorems, propositions, or formulas, but rather treats statistics as a tool - a tool for thinking critically, a tool for wading through large volumes of information, and a tool for answering life's important questions. Each chapter asks one main question and answers it using the art of data analysis. Along the way, basic concepts like descriptive statistics and regression are introduced, and important complicating issues such as skewed distributions and outliers are addressed. The book aims to be valuable not only to students of undergraduate statistics, but also managers, medical professionals, and anyone who has to make decisions based on raw data or compiled results. Since the examples are fun, engaging, and non-application specific, this book appeals to a broad audience of students and professionals alike. Chapter coverage includes: an introduction; the many uses of descriptive statistics; probability and statistics; probability and sample distributions; confidence intervals; hypothesis tests; regression; statistical correlation; data collection; and statistical analysis with graphs.
