Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780520279988)

Does a young person commit suicide every thirteen minutes in the United States? Are four million women really battered to death by their husbands or boyfriends each year? Is methamphetamine our number one drug problem today? Alarming statistics bombard our daily lives, appearing in the news, on the Web, seemingly everywhere. But all too often, even the most respected publications present numbers that are miscalculated, misinterpreted, hyped, or simply misleading.

This new edition contains revised benchmark statistics, updated resources, and a new section on the rhetorical uses of statistics, complete with new problems to be spotted and new examples illustrating those problems. Joel Best's best seller exposes questionable uses of statistics and guides the reader toward becoming a more critical, savvy consumer of news, information, and data.

Entertaining, informative, and concise, Stat-Spotting takes a commonsense approach to understanding data and doesn't require advanced math or statistics.

Author: Joel Best
ISBN-10: 0520279980
ISBN-13: 9780520279988
Publisher: University of California Press
Language: English
Published: 09/14/2013
Pages: 160
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.45lbs
Size: 8.10h x 5.40w x 0.50d