STAT 401 Lab 1 Notes
Geoffrey Thompson
5/22/2013
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Starting Out In JMP
1.1
Important things to know and do in JMP
1. Ways to deal with data:
(a) Open a file. JMP can handle intelligently a lot of types of files. It
also has its own proprietary format.
(b) Enter data. This is a painful method, but it may be necessary sometimes. Frankly, it’s easier to do data entry in some other program,
then save it and import it into JMP.
(c) Paste in data. This sometimes doesn’t work well, even within JMP.
2. Make sure the data came through appropriately.
i.e., if it had headers or labels, it came through right. Or if it had multiple
fields, that they were divided correctly. If it did not, figure out what went
wrong and try again. Or fix it. For things to work right, the file should
be set up so there is one header row and the rest of the file is data.
Don’t have several lines in your file of additional information, this will
muck up JMP.
3. Important note about your data: it has types. e.g., continuous, ordinal,
and nominal. If you expect your data to be one type but JMP thinks it
is something else, things won’t work right.
(a) Continuous type is for data where it would make sense to add, subtract, multiply, and divide the values. Called “quantitative” in the
book. e.g., 14.2, 199.8 . . .
(b) Ordinal type is for integer data where relative placement makes sense.
e.g., order of finishing in a race. We do not use this much.
(c) Nominal is for anything else. Useful for labeling categories in categorical data. Called “qualitative” in the book and in class. This
is the one that causes the most problems. If there is one bad input
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value in your file, JMP will read the variable as a categorical variable
and it is hard to convince it otherwise after the fact.
e.g. A, B, Iowa, “control”, “treatment” . . .
4. Make a stem and leaf plot, a histogram, a dotplot, a scatterplot.
I don’t know that stem and leaf plots or dotplots are possible. I haven’t
been able to find them. Look around, they might be in there.
5. Calculate mean, median, quartiles, for data.
6. (Later, or if there is more time) Functions of data.
7. (Later, or if there is time) Simulating from a random distribution.
1.2
Installing JMP
There is a somewhat helpful document and page somewhere on the statistics
department page. You may or may not find the instructions helpful. I will go
through the steps in lab, this might help.
Let me know if it doesn’t. Send me an e-mail, send statit (Stat Department
IT staff) an e-mail, whatever it takes to get it set up at home.
I find that the part people have the most trouble with is getting the license
to work. This will be demonstrated in lab. It’s tricky, so take notes, and if you
don’t get it when you get home, send me an e-mail and we can figure it out.
If you can wait until lab next week and you have a laptop, bring it in next
week and we can figure it out.
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“Homework”
This is not really homework. You don’t have to do this and you don’t have to
turn it in. This is just something that may be helpful for making sure you’ve
figured out JMP and have it installed. Basically, you’ll do what we did in lab
again.
1. Install JMP. If you can’t figure this part out, e-mail for help.
2. Look around on the internet for a dataset of your own. You want something with at least a couple variables.
3. Make a histogram of one of the variables.
4. Make a box plot.
5. Make a scatterplot with two variable.
6. Find the mean, median, and first quartile for one of the variables.
7. Make a new variable by adding two variables together. NOTE: I may not
have shown you this yet, this is optional unless you want to figure it out.
http://gzt.public.iastate.edu/stat401/
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