Author: Robert A. Donnelly Jr., Ph.D.

Publisher: ALPHA (Penguin);

ISBN: 1-59257-199-9

This statistics installment of the Idiot’s series is 377 pages in length.  The 20 chapters are organized into 4 parts in this softbound book, followed by an appendix (solutions to “your turn,” statistical tables, glossary, and index).

Having taught introductory courses in business statistics at the university level, more than a half-dozen times, I was looking forward to seeing just how the Idiot’s series dealt with the variety of topics covered in university texts, more technical in their delivery, but available at a much higher cost.  I was not disappointed.

            The book provides a variety of sidebars: (1) Stat Facts, (2) Random Thoughts, (3) Bob’s Basics, and (4) Wrong Number, and are intended to assist the reader with some of the more difficult topics, based on the author’s expertise and his years of teaching experience.  I particularly enjoyed reading the brief history of mathematics/statistics (p. 5-).  This material is not provided in most introductory books on this topic.  The book also provides some examples of Excel applications.  Again, this is a feature not likely to be present in some books on this topic, though some software-specific college or university texts (with student software disk supplements) might include, for example, Minitab™ applications.  These, of course, would cover the topic at a more advanced level, and would not be expected to be found in the Idiot’s series of books.

            Coverage includes terminology or jargon, followed by descriptive statistics, probability, and even includes inferential statistics.  This sequence is typical of most books on this topic.  Chi-squared, ANOVA and regression are covered in the final or relatively advanced chapters, and Appendix A provides solutions to the “your turn” exercises provided throughout.

This book provides broad brush strokes or introductory coverage of statistics, likely to be covered in greater depth and with the benefit of guidance provided by a lecturer or professor, in a first semester college or university level course.  It is likely to be of interest and is designed for those with no prior formal education or knowledge of statistics.  In fact, this might prove to be an excellent book for those intimidated by mathematics and statistics and “tooling up” for their first or introductory college or university level course on the topic.  The topic is, after all, a relatively technical one.  This is exactly what the Idiot’s series promises to those purchasing their books, so, for this target market or audience; I recommend it as a very suitable (and, perhaps even an excellent) choice for the first book on the topics of statistics.

The above review was contributed by:  Anthony (A.J.) Cataldo II.    Dr. Cataldo holds a PhD from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University , MAc ( University of Arizona)  unofficial minor in Marketing , BSBA  (University of Arizona). He is a Certified Management Accountant and a Certified Public Accountant:  Click Here to view Anthony's Reviews