Question about a Statistics and Probability course

[girzimanddib]

Hello to all. I recently enrolled into a statistics and probability course. My first Homework assignment is that i have to basically explain what statistics is, what we refer to when we use the word statistics and what other significance do we give that word commonly. Now here is where my question comes to light....I have to write a small essay explaining all of that but i have to back it up with valid arguments sustained by what i studied/read so far. Now how exactly could i include valid arguments in the essay? by just mentioning that statistics is.....what the document says it is? or should i include some types of examples given to me by the documents?


In other words, when i write my essay i dont want to just put the answer to each question and a reference to "validate" my findings, i want to know how exactly should i include my arguments in my essay, to validate my answers.

Or is it as simple as to just write the answer to the questions and put the references in the essay to validate my findings?

 

[smithy_2045]

Essay in a Statistics course? You unlucky son of a *****.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Essay in a Statistics course? You unlucky son of a *****.

Exactly what I was thinking. What the hell kind of math class assigns you papers?

As far as how to write the paper, this is your first homework assignment, you've been taught pretty much nothing in the class so far. Take the easy route, just answer each question and reference the text, that's probably all the professor expects of you anyway, and doing it any other way is a waste of your time (I mean seriously, a paper in a math class?).

 

[Heronblade]

Just starting statistics?

Given this particular first impression, there may not be much hope, but for the sake of your sanity, pray that the professor isn't one of the many teachers of statistics that seem to think vague lectures on background theory is sufficient to teach the needed material.

I was unlucky enough to get two of those in a row for two different statistics based courses, and as a bonus, both had extremely thick accents. Those two were the only courses I've ever taken where I could definitely have learned more by skipping every class and using the time well studying.

 

[Esotera]

State it as a fact and if it's not commonly known in your field, reference the claim. As you're just doing a beginner's course you may want to reference a few common claims just to show you know how to do it...otherwise it's just like writing a normal essay, plan it out and you'll be fine.

 

[Nomad]

Hello to all. I recently enrolled into a statistics and probability course. My first Homework assignment is that i have to basically explain what statistics is, what we refer to when we use the word statistics and what other significance do we give that word commonly. Now here is where my question comes to light....I have to write a small essay explaining all of that but i have to back it up with valid arguments sustained by what i studied/read so far. Now how exactly could i include valid arguments in the essay? by just mentioning that statistics is.....what the document says it is? or should i include some types of examples given to me by the documents?


In other words, when i write my essay i dont want to just put the answer to each question and a reference to "validate" my findings, i want to know how exactly should i include my arguments in my essay, to validate my answers.

Or is it as simple as to just write the answer to the questions and put the references in the essay to validate my findings?

Simply put, yes. Your references are your arguments. Depending on the exact phrasing your your assignment, you may also want to discuss the significance of statistics - i.e. what we can learn from it and how, and what its limitations are.

 

[HannesPascal]

Statistics is to mathematically interpret data and make conclusions like is the value of zirconium concentration too high in drinking water or did I just get high values because of the imprecise method. You use a lot of confidence intervals (learn of to create confidence intervals from any distribution asap). Most of us (including yours truly before I took my course in statistics) think statistics is just collecting data, maybe going so far as calculating the average. But it is much more it's testing hypotheses, planning experiments (should it be completely random or randomised blocs), creating confidence intervals (never forget about the confidence intervals) and linear and non-linear regressions. Just don't forget that a statistical causation doesn't mean that there is a real causation (more famously phrased as "Correlation does not mean causation").