Statistics for Absolute Beginners: A Plain English Introduction

by Oliver Theobald

Data is collected constantly – who we frequently interact with on Facebook, how far we traveled today, and where we spend our money – and every tiny bit of data has a story to tell. On their own, these specs of information are virtually insignificant beyond a standalone measurement. A measurement of a single transaction, a single action, and a single journey, and while that single record of something is not entirely useless, its full value remains uncultivated.

New fields of data analysis, whether they be machine learning, data mining, natural language processing and recommender systems provide powerful tools to unlock the underlying patterns and hidden insight of the data created, collected, and stored in troves each day.

But behind each new technique to analyze data remains an old way of looking for insight – one that predates microchips and computers by thousands of years. That lens to deciphering numbers and underlying patterns is the reliable field of statistics. Statistics touches upon all aspects of data including the planning of data collection and storage, and provides the foundation for advanced analysis techniques including machine learning and data mining.

In this absolute beginners introduction to statistics, you will learn important techniques to analyze data, including linear regression, standard deviation, and clustering, to prepare you for further study in the field of data science.

Genres: Nonfiction, Amazon, Mathematics

158 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 28, 2017

Reviews

[Andrew Fraser · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first few chapters were a good reminder to statistics but when selling to “absolute beginners”, the final few chapters didn’t provide the necessary context or helpful hints to understand and instead just turned into a bit of a formula book. Wouldn’t take too much to remedy and still learnt a lot from it but the final few chapters took their toll

[Betsy Street · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars only because I don't have much to compare it to. It gave me a good introduction to concepts of statistics. Sometimes page breaks happened at weird spots and his personal opinions came out in some weird areas. Useful book.

[William Weir · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too short and as a result felt superficial. Probably best used as a refresher of key concepts rather than a foundation for absolute beginners.

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I give this book 3.5 stars. It's a short book with a little everything relating to statistics and probability and with some examples worked out to show how the equations work.

[Jeff Walzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic introduction to stats

A well written book with clear explanations and examples that make it easy to dive into the basics of learning about stats. A highly recommended read to start one’s journey into stats and a springboard to continue to dive deeper.