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マンガでわかる [Manga de Wakaru]
The Manga Guide to Regression Analysis
Regression analysis is a core component of the statistics classes required of millions of students. Regression analysis has numerous practical applications, such as predicting sales, finding risk factors for a disease, or anticipating demand for goods at a given price, but the math is challenging, and many struggle with the course. As with all titles in the best-selling Manga Guide series, The Manga Guide to Regression Analysis combines comics with real-world examples to teach readers how to use regression analysis to analyze data and make predictions. The book begins with a review of inverse functions, matrix algebra, and differential calculus, then goes on to explain single, multiple and logistic regression analysis. Readers also learn hypothesis testing, analysis of variance, F and Chi-squared distributions, significance levels, as well as how to use Microsoft Excel for calculations. Co-published with Tokyo-based technical publisher Ohmsha, this is the newest title in the popular Manga Guide series, with over 500,000 copies sold worldwide.
224 pages, Paperback
First published September 25, 2005
21 people are currently reading
244 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
October 7, 2016
I recommend reading the Manga Guide to Statistics and maybe the Manga Guide to Calculus before diving into this one. It is really heavy on hard knowledge divorced from the plot compared to most of the others I've read. THAT BEING SAID, it still visually displays the hard knowledge well and keeps the terms away from jargon unless truly necessary I felt.
December 12, 2024
This was one of the more useless books I have ever read.
It's essentially marketed to be a way to teach regression analysis to people who don't know how to do it. It's marketed as an easy way to understand because of the manga storyline, because if you have a cute manga character explaining the concepts, obviously everyone will understand those concepts.
No.
No. That is not the case.
The fact that this is in the form of manga does nothing to make it more understandable. The narrative of the manga has nothing to do with the concepts of regression analysis. Basically a cafe worker thinks a boy is cute, he is studying regression analysis, she starts studying it in order to have something to talk to him about. What does that have to do with predicting values you might ask? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Now the book does use data from a cafe in order to illustrate how you do the calculations involved with various types of regression, but it gives you all of the data, and then fills out all of the equations for you, and solves them for you too. We all need examples, so, so far so good. But what it doesn't really do is explain what the numbers mean, where you get the numbers from, or how once you have the numbers how you are supposed to know which numbers you are supposed to put where.
It also doesn't help that there is no application. They give you the data, then they solve it for you. Then they move on to the next concept, because why on earth would anyone need something to be explained more than once in order to understand how to do it? Let alone actually, you know, do it for themselves.
The only thing that rescued this book from receiving a 1 star rating was the final appendix, which actually was a step by step illustration of how to use excel to do functions like multiplying appendices. I didn't know how to do that, I didn't know it was even possible, now I do. Hurrah for learning something.
In short, this might possibly be a good book for someone who already knows a decent amount about regression and just needs a review. For someone like me, who has a barely passing knowledge of what it is, let alone how to use it, it was hopelessly confusing.
It's essentially marketed to be a way to teach regression analysis to people who don't know how to do it. It's marketed as an easy way to understand because of the manga storyline, because if you have a cute manga character explaining the concepts, obviously everyone will understand those concepts.
No.
No. That is not the case.
The fact that this is in the form of manga does nothing to make it more understandable. The narrative of the manga has nothing to do with the concepts of regression analysis. Basically a cafe worker thinks a boy is cute, he is studying regression analysis, she starts studying it in order to have something to talk to him about. What does that have to do with predicting values you might ask? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Now the book does use data from a cafe in order to illustrate how you do the calculations involved with various types of regression, but it gives you all of the data, and then fills out all of the equations for you, and solves them for you too. We all need examples, so, so far so good. But what it doesn't really do is explain what the numbers mean, where you get the numbers from, or how once you have the numbers how you are supposed to know which numbers you are supposed to put where.
It also doesn't help that there is no application. They give you the data, then they solve it for you. Then they move on to the next concept, because why on earth would anyone need something to be explained more than once in order to understand how to do it? Let alone actually, you know, do it for themselves.
The only thing that rescued this book from receiving a 1 star rating was the final appendix, which actually was a step by step illustration of how to use excel to do functions like multiplying appendices. I didn't know how to do that, I didn't know it was even possible, now I do. Hurrah for learning something.
In short, this might possibly be a good book for someone who already knows a decent amount about regression and just needs a review. For someone like me, who has a barely passing knowledge of what it is, let alone how to use it, it was hopelessly confusing.
September 9, 2022
now declaring data science
February 8, 2017
This book chases two rabbits and loses them both. It's too advanced and math heavy to give a simple/broad understanding of regression concepts, but at the same time tends to gloss over certain details important to regression analysis. That being said, the drawings really helped solidify some of my understanding of regression, as I'm a visual learner and typically textbooks are light on visuals. Also, the writing was entertaining, which for a book like this is a big bonus. I would recommend this book as a way to reinforce some regression analysis concepts, but not to learn it.
March 9, 2022
As someone who have some basic exposure to regression analysis, I personally enjoyed how the book linked the technical aspect of regression analysis to the application of it. This book is great in reinforcing my understanding on the application of this subject along with the flow of the calculation - from coming up with a regression equation, examining the accuracy of the equation, performing hypothesis testing, to making prediction with it.
I think this book will be more suitable for people who have background in probability, statistics, matrices and perhaps some basic exposure to regression analysis. Though it's only an introduction to this subject, without some backgrounds in the areas which I have mentioned, I think this book might be a little heavy for people who are expecting it to be totally beginner friendly.
I think this book will be more suitable for people who have background in probability, statistics, matrices and perhaps some basic exposure to regression analysis. Though it's only an introduction to this subject, without some backgrounds in the areas which I have mentioned, I think this book might be a little heavy for people who are expecting it to be totally beginner friendly.
November 9, 2016
Disclaimer: the good folks at No Starch Press were kind enough to provide me with a review copy of this book, but this did not influence my assessment in any way.
The Manga Guide To Regression Analysis is No Starch’s latest addition to the popular Manga Guide series which so far consists of 12 books covering different topics in science and mathematics. Not surprisingly the series is originally from Japan, where it is published by Omsha.
Having read quite a few books on mathematics and statistic, I know from personal experience how dense and boring they can be, so any effort to make these very interesting subjects more approachable is more than welcome.
The story follows waitress Miu, who would like to study regression analysis to get closer to a handsome customer. This in itself may turn some people off this book. The whole idea that a female main character only wants to study some maths so she can get closer to her secret crush can seem a bit demeaning to women. STEM subjects already suffer from a shortage of females, so we should encourage them as much as possible without further stereotyping them. At least this is somewhat redeemed by the fact that Miu’s teacher is her female coworker Risa, but some readers may still be bothered by this.
The book starts of with a pretty long section on mathematical concepts like logarithms and differential calculus. While nicely presented it didn’t seem necessary to do it in such a condensed form (or at this length considering that this is supposed to be an introductory text), I think it would be less scary for potential readers if the relevant bits got introduced as needed. From what I’ve gathered online that’s what other parts of the series do, and I believe it would also have worked better in this volume.
As the story progresses we are introduced to the regression equation, with examples relevant to the café the main characters work at. From there the title moves on to introducing correlation coefficients, hypothesis tests, variance analysis, and confidence intervals and much more. Once again the presentation was nicely done, but I couldn’t help but wonder if somebody with a limited maths/statistics background would be able to follow.
This becomes even more of an issue when the book moves on to topics like multiple and logistic regression analysis. If this is one’s first exposure to these concepts, I’m not sure that the content up to that point will have been sufficient for understanding, while readers already familiar with the subject matter may not find too much interesting material here.
Overall this has not been my favorite title by No Starch so far, but I never read one of their Manga Guides before. While I do appreciate the attempt to make difficult subjects more approachable, I’m not entirely sure it worked for me in this case. Without previous knowledge of statistics and regression analysis I think some parts of the book would have been a bit over my head, though that is obviously a bit hard to judge. That said they drawings are nice with a cute enough background story (if you can deal with the caveat mentioned above) and different approaches work for different people. So while I can’t give this book a wholehearted recommendation, it’s definitely worth checking out if you need to learn some regression analysis and find more traditional books too boring. It could also be a useful resource during exam preparation or revision, since the nice and easygoing presentation could be beneficial to those with prior knowledge of the subject.
The Manga Guide To Regression Analysis is No Starch’s latest addition to the popular Manga Guide series which so far consists of 12 books covering different topics in science and mathematics. Not surprisingly the series is originally from Japan, where it is published by Omsha.
Having read quite a few books on mathematics and statistic, I know from personal experience how dense and boring they can be, so any effort to make these very interesting subjects more approachable is more than welcome.
The story follows waitress Miu, who would like to study regression analysis to get closer to a handsome customer. This in itself may turn some people off this book. The whole idea that a female main character only wants to study some maths so she can get closer to her secret crush can seem a bit demeaning to women. STEM subjects already suffer from a shortage of females, so we should encourage them as much as possible without further stereotyping them. At least this is somewhat redeemed by the fact that Miu’s teacher is her female coworker Risa, but some readers may still be bothered by this.
The book starts of with a pretty long section on mathematical concepts like logarithms and differential calculus. While nicely presented it didn’t seem necessary to do it in such a condensed form (or at this length considering that this is supposed to be an introductory text), I think it would be less scary for potential readers if the relevant bits got introduced as needed. From what I’ve gathered online that’s what other parts of the series do, and I believe it would also have worked better in this volume.
As the story progresses we are introduced to the regression equation, with examples relevant to the café the main characters work at. From there the title moves on to introducing correlation coefficients, hypothesis tests, variance analysis, and confidence intervals and much more. Once again the presentation was nicely done, but I couldn’t help but wonder if somebody with a limited maths/statistics background would be able to follow.
This becomes even more of an issue when the book moves on to topics like multiple and logistic regression analysis. If this is one’s first exposure to these concepts, I’m not sure that the content up to that point will have been sufficient for understanding, while readers already familiar with the subject matter may not find too much interesting material here.
Overall this has not been my favorite title by No Starch so far, but I never read one of their Manga Guides before. While I do appreciate the attempt to make difficult subjects more approachable, I’m not entirely sure it worked for me in this case. Without previous knowledge of statistics and regression analysis I think some parts of the book would have been a bit over my head, though that is obviously a bit hard to judge. That said they drawings are nice with a cute enough background story (if you can deal with the caveat mentioned above) and different approaches work for different people. So while I can’t give this book a wholehearted recommendation, it’s definitely worth checking out if you need to learn some regression analysis and find more traditional books too boring. It could also be a useful resource during exam preparation or revision, since the nice and easygoing presentation could be beneficial to those with prior knowledge of the subject.
October 1, 2017
Mentre leggete questa recensione, tenete bene a mente che la sottoscritta è una capra in matematica.
A mio papà, ad esempio, questi libri piacciono perché lui riesce più o meno a seguirli fino alla fine. Il mio cervellino, invece, non è programmato per i numeri e quindi io riesco a seguire più o meno fino al primo capitolo. Quando le cose si fanno più complicate vedo tutti quei numeri che mi ballano davanti agli occhi e non hanno alcun senso.
Quindi ho praticamente letto solo la storiella e i commenti, non le parti testuali. Qualche concetto è anche entrato, ma niente che possa resistere fino a domani.
A mio papà, ad esempio, questi libri piacciono perché lui riesce più o meno a seguirli fino alla fine. Il mio cervellino, invece, non è programmato per i numeri e quindi io riesco a seguire più o meno fino al primo capitolo. Quando le cose si fanno più complicate vedo tutti quei numeri che mi ballano davanti agli occhi e non hanno alcun senso.
Quindi ho praticamente letto solo la storiella e i commenti, non le parti testuali. Qualche concetto è anche entrato, ma niente che possa resistere fino a domani.
June 28, 2016
See my Amazon review. I don't recommend it.
https://www.amazon.com/review/REO1KO5...
https://www.amazon.com/review/REO1KO5...
December 13, 2016
Learn-tertainment. A combination of a comic book and an accessible intro to regression analysis.
January 22, 2017
Interessante, didattico, ma un po' complicato. Non ho mai usato questi concetti.
Read
January 8, 2017Regression analysis is among the most used and least understood statistical applications in industrial settings. Like other Manga guides, this one tries to simplify a complex topic through a story. In this case, the motivation to learn comes for the hopes of meeting someone special (a plot not unlike most Manga guides in this series). In this specific instance, Miu learns from her fellow c-worker Risa about regression so she has the background to study with a visitor to the coffee shop where both Miu and Risa work. As most Manga Guides in this series, each chapter contains a comic section followed by a more traditional text-book section that delves deeper into the material under discussion.
In this series, the book starts with an introductory chapter titled “A Refreshing Glass of Math”. This chapter reviews function (especially logs and exponents), calculus, matrices, and basic probability and statistics. Some of these topics were covered in previous Manga Guides in this series. The next three chapters are the most substantive chapters. They cover simple regression, multiple regression, and logistic regression. There is also a note in the multiple regression chapter on transforming variables to linearize the regression equation, but the follow up discussion on how to deal with hypothesis testing and evaluating goodness of fit of the actual (non-linearized) variables is not as detailed as some readers would expect.
Throughout the book references to using a computer (presumably a spreadsheet) are constantly made. Actually the characters use laptops to perform some of the calculations in some of the elater chapters. An appendix of how to perform these calculations in Excel is useful for those who don’t have access to statistical software and would like to use regression analysis.
Like other Manga Guides, this book is a useful companion to a regression analysis textbook, and recommended for those taking such a course. However regression analysis does require some foundational math (presented in the first chapter), so this book is not recommended for those who do not have background in calculus, descriptive statistics, matrices and functions. I received a review copy of this book.
In this series, the book starts with an introductory chapter titled “A Refreshing Glass of Math”. This chapter reviews function (especially logs and exponents), calculus, matrices, and basic probability and statistics. Some of these topics were covered in previous Manga Guides in this series. The next three chapters are the most substantive chapters. They cover simple regression, multiple regression, and logistic regression. There is also a note in the multiple regression chapter on transforming variables to linearize the regression equation, but the follow up discussion on how to deal with hypothesis testing and evaluating goodness of fit of the actual (non-linearized) variables is not as detailed as some readers would expect.
Throughout the book references to using a computer (presumably a spreadsheet) are constantly made. Actually the characters use laptops to perform some of the calculations in some of the elater chapters. An appendix of how to perform these calculations in Excel is useful for those who don’t have access to statistical software and would like to use regression analysis.
Like other Manga Guides, this book is a useful companion to a regression analysis textbook, and recommended for those taking such a course. However regression analysis does require some foundational math (presented in the first chapter), so this book is not recommended for those who do not have background in calculus, descriptive statistics, matrices and functions. I received a review copy of this book.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews