Choosing and Using Statistics: A Biologist's Guide

By Calvin Dytham

Book Overview

The first edition of this excellent handbook was extremely well received by both students and lecturers alike. It has helped to simplify the often complex and difficult task of choosing and using the right statistics package. This is a book for any student or professional biologist who wants to process data using a statistical package on the computer, to select appropriate methods, and extract the important information from the often confusing output that is produced. It is aimed primarily at undergraduates and masters students in the biological sciences who have to apply statistics in practical classes and projects. Such users of statistics do not have to understand either how tests work or how to do the calculations, and these aspects are not covered in the book. The new edition has been updated to cover the very latest versions of the computer packages described, expanded to include coverage for logistic regression, a more detailed consideration of multivariate analysis, data exploration and further examples of Principle Component Analysis and Discriminate Function Analysis are given. New edition will use SPSS 10.0, Minitab 13.1 and Excel 2000. New simplified version of the Key and flow chart of decisions to reach simple statistical tests. Section on multivariate techniques expanded to give further examples of PCA and DFA. Aimed at students using statistics for projects and in practical classes. Statistical jargon explained through an extensive glossary and key to symbols. Stresses the importance of experimental design, measurement of data and interpretation of results rather than an understanding of the statistical tests themselves.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1405102438
• ISBN13: 9781405102438
• Release Date: February 2003
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.7" x 0.6" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

The most practical statistics book I have ever used.

The author provides very clear and easy to follow explanations of the type of tests used and when they should be used. Furthermore, he provides step by step instructions for using the tests in SPSS, minitab, and excel, something that few other books do.

Relief for those who don't speak in equations

This is a great, practical book for ecological and evolutionary researchers. Dytham walks you through the choosing and using of different common statistical applications. If you can't find it in here, you probably have an advanced question that requires a mathematical answer, in which case it's time to dust off that heavy textbook. For most questions, this will save you time and frustration.

How to make statistics clear: a book to be ready-to-go

After too many books with a useless wealth of equations to leave you in a worse confusion here is finally a book to give you hints and tools to tackle the problem. Good coverage of both parametric and less known non-parametric statistics, modern approach through coverage of popular packages, keys to choose the various tests and lots of examples and hints for the experimental design. Generally a complete book which manages...