The Complete Idiot's Guide to Statistics (Complete Idiot's Guide to)

Rating:
Summary: A Fantastic Book
Review: Although I am a math student, my introductory course in statistics with the psychology department was like wandering through a dark maze where the only person with a light can't hold it still long enough to keep everyone oriented. This book gave me my own light. With a 58% on my first test, I knew I needed help. Two days before my second test I bought this book and learned everything in the space of about 6 hours. With an 82 on the second test, I went into the exam with a 70% and came out with a big smile on my face. I couldn't have asked for a better tutor. Bob Donelly makes statistics a walk in the park!

Rating:
Summary: Great Statistics Book
Review: Great book for learning the basics of application statistics.
Book contains a lot of clear and simple examples, is well illustrated. It also contains examples based on Microsoft Excel.
The book can be used for statistics courses regardless the book's title that some students can find insulting.

Rating:
Summary: Right mix of everything
Review: I am reading this to brush up on my very weak and ancient knowledge of stats. If only books like this were available in 1978 when I took statistics! Recently I looked at my college textbook. What a horrible yawn it is!! Yuck! These "Complete Idiots Guides" are really excellent because they are not so huge and overwhelming, yet they have the mainstream stuff that most of us need.

The humor helps, too, and the author's website has cute pictures of his family members, who figure into the book's examples. It is surprising how much a picture helps!

I've worked through almost the whole book and it was really just what I needed. My only suggestion (outside of a few
typo fixes) is to provide more exercises, possibly with only
the answers, not the whole worked-out solutions. Keep the
worked-out problems that are there, though! There is nothing
that firms up one's knowledge better than doing problems, and
seeing the correct answers.

So I recommend this book both to college students who are suffering, as well as to busy professionals who need a refresher and can't devote hundreds of hours.

Rating:
Summary: An excellently written review of statistics
Review: I bought this book to review statistics for our state's teacher
certification examination for secondary math education. It was
excellent for this purpose. It included the full range of material
that was covered on the exam (counting, descriptive statistics,
basic probablility distributions, sampling techniques, etc.). I
found the book to be very broad in content without being excessively
burdened with proofs and other information too technical for the
intended purpose. The writing style was light, frequently humorous,
as was to be expected for this series, but never stopped being below
the surface a serious review of mathematics. The writing style flowed
from chapter to chapter, and as a result it was easy for this reader
to build knowledge from the first chapter to the last. The bottom
line is that I passed the statistics portion of the exam.

Rating:
Summary: Great Stats Assistance
Review: I struggled getting through a required course in Biostatistics. This book was the only way I go through that class! The author put complicated ideas into terms that I could understand. The personal stories helped ease the tension I felt trying to comprehend a difficult subject.

Rating:
Summary: Great reference for those with & without a stats background!
Review: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Statistics is a great reference for those with a statistics background and a wonderful learning aid for who may not be as familiar with statistical methods. The meat and potatoes of the concepts are clearly explained and well illustrated, supplemented with Excel how-to's.

This book replaces two textbooks that I kept at the office for reference on statistical methods. In fact, the book is so robust and easy to understand that we have developed an in-house stats and Excel seminar with The Complete Idiot's Guide to Statistics as the centerpiece.

This book is for anyone who is looking for an applied knowledge of statistical concepts!

Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: This is a great book for those who are interested in truly understanding statistics. With an easy-reading format and plenty of examples, the author walks the reader through examples. The "Stat Facts" boxes were especially helpful.

Rating:
Summary: A wondeful refresher or first exposure to statistics
Review: This is an excellent review of statistics, drawing examples from everyday life in order to simultaneously demonstrate the usefulness of statistics in everyday life and train the reader in how to calculate and interpret them. My last formal exposure to many of these concepts was in grad school 20 years ago, and I was looking for a "refresher" for an upcoming CFA2 exam given the let's say relative inaccessibility of the recommended text and this is definitely what I was looking for..... whether you are student or professional preparing for an exam, a writer trying to make sure you get "the numbers" right, or a reader trying to figure out what "the numbers" really mean - this is your book.