Practical Business Statistics
Sixth Edition
by Andrew F. Siegel
Published by Elsevier / Academic Press
Outline
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Why I chose to write this book
My background
General themes
Selected examples
Chapter projects and the writing chapter
Conclusion and Summary
Outline
•
•
•
•
•
•
Why I chose to write this book
My background
General themes
Selected examples
Chapter projects and the writing chapter
Conclusion and Summary
Why did I Write this Book?
• For the students!
• To make statistical methods more accessible
to them by using many real data examples
• Student motivation is everything (almost)
• My goal: to make statistics as simple as
possible without sacrificing technical
correctness
Outline
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Why I chose to write this book
My background
General themes
Selected examples
Chapter projects and the writing chapter
Conclusion and Summary
My Academic Background
• Now at University of Washington’s Foster
School of Business and Statistics Department
• Ph.D. in Statistics from Stanford while studying
both theory and data analysis
• Also: University of Wisconsin and Harvard
• Worked with John Tukey at Princeton (he
created exploratory data analysis)
• Published extensively in statistics,
biotechnology, and finance
My Business Background
• Shoveling snow as a child
• Consultant in advertising, portfolios,
biotechnology, elections, and manufacturing
• Serve on a corporate board
• Maintain a sole proprietorship
• Helps me understand why business people
need probability and statistics!
Outline
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Why I chose to write this book
My background
General themes
Selected examples
Chapter projects and the writing chapter
Conclusion and Summary
General Themes
• Lots of examples!
– Real business data from finance, accounting,
advertising, ...
• Writing style: how to think about a topic, how
it works, what it implies, how it is useful
– Traditional methods and new insights
• Extra material to help the student
– Chapter summaries, key words, glossary, extensive
index, PowerPoint slides, Excel Guide
Outline
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Why I chose to write this book
My background
General themes
Selected examples
Chapter projects and the writing chapter
Conclusion and Summary
Histograms and Bar Charts
To help students distinguish the
histogram from the simple bar chart,
for the data here is the example
from page 39 of the Histograms Chapter
(Chapter 3) which also mentions the
advantage of the histogram for larger
data sets.
Histogram, Box Plot, and CDF
To compare and contrast these three
basic exploratory charts, here is the
example from page 83 of Chapter 4 on
Landmark Summaries.
Probability Trees
Probability is less
mysterious to students
when there is a visual
framework, as shown here
in the example from page
144 of Chapter 6.
PowerPoint Slides for Your Teaching
PowerPoint Slides for Your Teaching
PowerPoint Slides for Your Teaching
Hypothesis Testing
Hypothesis testing is more
intuitive when the
confidence interval
method is used (as shown
here from pages 253-254
of Chapter 10). The
traditional t-statistic is also
presented in detail.
Bivariate Data Examples
Relationships and regression are powerful
business concepts. Here are a couple of the
examples from Chapter 11 on Bivariate Data
(pages 295 and 308).
Magazine Ads and Multiple Regression
The cost of advertising can be explained, in part,
by magazine characteristics such as audience
size and income level in this example that is used
to illustrate the power of multiple regression in
business, from Chapter 12.
Excel Guide
The Excel Guide goes step-by-step through,
chapter by chapter, to show students how Excel
can be used to obtain statistical results. Here is
the scatterplot example from page 82 of the
Excel Guide.
Outline
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Why I chose to write this book
My background
General themes
Selected examples
Chapter projects and the writing chapter
Conclusion and Summary
Chapter Projects
• The project, in most chapters, gives students a
chance to apply the lesson to a business area
of their own choosing.
• Data might come from the Internet or from
their own company
• Helps with motivation
• Helps with communications skills
The Writing Chapter (Chapter 13)
• Explains how to communicate
– the results of a multiple regression
• In business, analysis is not enough.
– The ability to communicate is a key skill!
• The writing process is explained step-by-step
– with a full example of a sample report
• The chapter project might be used as the endof-semester assignment
Outline
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•
•
•
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Why I chose to write this book
My background
General themes
Selected examples
Chapter projects and the writing chapter
Conclusion and Summary
Conclusion and Summary
• A book that helps and motivates students:
– Many real business examples with illustrations
– Clear, direct explanations of how and why
• Intuition, methods, and foundations
– Extra resources:
• Chapter summaries, key words, glossary, extensive index
• Questions, problems, database exercises, cases, projects
• PowerPoint slides, Excel Guide, and Instructor’s Manual
Thank you!
Wishing you a successful teaching experience,
Practical Business Statistics, Sixth Edition,
Andrew F. Siegel (Andy) and Elsevier, Inc.