Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 11
 Novice at Stats September 20, 2008
dame
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I have never taken a Stats course before and I find this book deficient in several areas. First of all, I do not think it gives comprehensive explanation involving many concepts. Secondly, the problems at the end of each chapter incorporate formulas, equations of concepts that haven't been covered previously. Therefore, it's difficult to complete homework without much invesetigation and frustration! Lastly, I do not care for how the book refers back to previous examples on several occcasions. This cause you to have to jump back and forth in the book. Besides that, many of the illustrations have similar titles (e.g. example, figure, exercise..) and can lead to some confusion.
 Key Points August 1, 2008
S. M Marson (Lumberton, NC)
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
I notice that most of the reviews for Moore's THE BASIC PRACTICE OF STATISTICS have been written by students. I found these reviews insightful to read. My students (like the ones who composed the reviews) are not math majors and do NOT want to enroll in a statistics course.
Being sensitive to that fact, I spent a great deal of time selecting a statistic text. I had several concerns which directed me toward adopting Moore's text:
1. Oftentimes, one can find typos in textbooks. This isn't a major problem, but if there is a typo in a formula, the problems for students are enormous! If the professor is from the math or statistics department, he/she can quickly catch the error and explain it to the students. If the professor is from the social sciences, he/she is less likely to catch the error. I've actually found errors in statistics textbooks. These critical errors usually can be found in books which are written by social scientists (someone like me). Thus, I've concluded that stat books written by statisticians are less apt to have typos than stat books written by social scientists. Moore is a statistician with a considerable reputation.
2. I needed a book with excellent graphic illustrations. A good graphic will help a student understand a complex statistical concept better than the written word. Moore's text is filled with great graphics that explain complex concepts. Page 347 is a great example and has produced an epiphany for several students.
3. I needed an introductory book that included information on control charts. Moore offers this. Frankly, I haven't found another intro stat book that does this.
I've reviewed a large number of statistic textbooks. In my estimation, Moore offers the best book for non math majors.
For more reading about the use of THE BASIC PRACTICE OF STATISTICS, check out volume 27 issues 3-4, 2007, pages 199-213 of THE JOURNAL OF TEACHING IN SOCIAL WORK.
 AVOID July 22, 2008
A. Miller (Illinois, USA)
1 out of 6 found this review helpful
The content is this book is awful. This book is for a low level statistics class and fails at teaching even the basic concepts. If you want to learn math with words instead of numbers and symbols this is the book for you. I would not recommend this book to anyone. A better buy is Mathematical Statistics with Applications Sixth Edition Wackerly, Mendenhall, Scheaffer. I had that book for my MATH 483 class and it was a breeze. Can you believe it I actually enjoyed my statistics class!
 Fulfils its purpose. April 21, 2008
Tom Wingard-Phillips (Seattle, WA)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is pretty well organized in terms of content. It also works especially well when used with the study guide you can purchase as a supplement.
I mean, its stats February 4, 2008
greenteadays
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I find this textbook to be a little expensive, but im guessing thats normal for these kinds of textbooks. Its a pretty good textbook with ALOT of sample problems and practice problems that helps (as long as you do them) I find that there are more practice problems/examples than explanations, so i sometimes refer to wikipedia/google for definitions, since i find that some terms/ideas/concepts arent explained that well.
They have some nice pictures, and good sample problems. I find the data they use for examples and sample problems to be very interesting. From sports stats, medical stats, population stats, pop culture stats...theres an interesting variety of sample data they give.
It might just be me, but im actually enjoying stats.
Showing reviews 6-10 of 11
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