Cartoon Guide to Statistics
By Larry Gonick, Woollcott Smith
* Publisher: Collins
* Number Of Pages: 230
* Publication Date: 1994-02-25
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0062731025
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780062731029
Product Description:
If you have ever looked for P-values by shopping at P mart, tried to watch the Bernoulli Trials on "People's Court," or think that the standard deviation is a criminal offense in six states, then you need The Cartoon Guide to Statistics to put you on the road to statistical literacy.
The Cartoon Guide to Statistics covers all the central ideas of modern statistics: the summary and display of data, probability in gambling and medicine, random variables, Bernoulli Trails, the Central Limit Theorem, hypothesis testing, confidence interval estimation, and much more--all explained in simple, clear, and yes, funny illustrations. Never again will you order the Poisson Distribution in a French restaurant!
Summary: Perfect for me - probably not for everyone
Rating: 5
I'm in love with this book and I feel like it was written with me in mind, so if your math background and goals are anything like mine, I can't recommend it enough.
So, here's my deal: I'm a med student and am about to start a bio statistics course. I wanted to brush up on stat ahead of time over spring break, but I knew I'd never bring myself to read a serious stat book on the beach (especially having ADD). I've never taken a stat course, but my math education got as far as calculus many years ago, and I teach SAT math so I'm not too rusty on algebra. I'm also a general-purpose science nerd and feel pretty comfortable with the fundamentals of probability.
Most of the chapters started out reviewing things I already knew - for example, one of the first chapters goes over the definitions of mean and median and how to calculate them - none of which was news to me. (Ironically, even though the author probably ought to include such basic concepts for the sake of completeness, anyone who doesn't already understand how to calculate an average is probably going to find this book too advanced). But the chapter then went on to explain how to calculate standard deviations and other more advanced concepts I'd long since forgotten at a pretty ideal level.
So, at my present math-nerd rank, some of the book was skimmable review, and most of it was exactly what I was hoping to learn presented in a way that was neither dumbed-down nor confusing.
I was afraid that the gimicky nature of a cartoon math text might go along with sloppy pedagogy, but it's exactly the opposite. I feel like a lot of thought was put into presenting the material in the most logical way possible. It's also ideal for visual learners like myself, since every concept is shown as a picture or graph, sometimes in multiple ways. And, of course, the cartoons make it fun to read. Don't expect the jokes to be hilarious, but they're cute enough to keep my attention, and that's HUGE.
Now, here's who I think shouldn't buy this book: I think if you're a serious math geek you're going to find this book too slow. (On the other hand, a serious math geek probably wouldn't buy a cartoon math book anyway...) While it might be useful to a geek who's just forgotten an equation or two, you'd have to wade through a lot of cutesy stuff to find a specific bit of info.
I also think you shouldn't buy this book if you're a total math-a-phobe. The book assumes a fair amount of math background, and uses scary greek letters. If you're up for a challenge, I think almost anyone can get some use from the book, but if your math skills are really lacking, you'll have to be brave when reading it. It's not going to hold your hand. This book plus a patient math-geek friend to fill in the gaps might get you through, though. I hate to discourage anyone from buying this book, since I think it does such a fantastic job - but you should have fair warning that it does go into moderately advanced concepts.
In short, this is a book for nerds who think math is kinda cool, are already comfortable with the basic concepts of probability, and are looking for a serious but fun crash-course in statistics. It's also ideal for visual learners and those who find it difficult to force themselves to read prose-heavy texts.
I personally feel like I'm going to rock my bio stat class thanks to this book, and I seriously enjoyed reading it.
http://ifile.it/zx527dp/cgs.rar pass:molbion
