Exploratory data analysis

The initial chapters of this e-book describe graphical and numerical ways to explore and summarise data. Appropriate methods depend on the structure of the data set — the number and types of its variables.

Data collection

Statisticians should be involved before any data are collected. Statistical principles can be applied to the data collection process that ensure that the resulting data can be meaningfully analysed. Chapters 7 and 8 explore the idea of random sampling and describe some principles that should be followed in data collection.

Inference

To fully understand the information that is contained in most data sets, we must take account of randomness — if we collected the data again, the values would often be different. The relevant statistical methods are collectively called inference. Again, the details of the statistical analysis depend mostly on the structure of the data set — the number and types of its variables.