BASIC MINITAB INFORMATION

General Comments:
1. Remember that when using a computer, things sometimes go wrong. If what you first try doesn’t work, try again or try a reasonable variation. Follow any instructions in dialogue boxes that may appear. Try using on-line help. Try asking someone for help.
2. If you are using a computer other than a math department one (or if the math department system has changed since last I looked), instructions may vary slightly from those below, but you can probably figure out what to do from what is given here and on-line help.

Help: Unfortunately, Help does not work on math department Minitab. But if you are using Minitab elsewhere, make use of the Help feature when you get stuck.

Data entry

Data are entered as on a spreadsheet in the "Worksheet"window.
You may label columns -- but there may be a limit to the number of characters you can use.

Dialogue boxes

Most are relatively self-explanatory.
Columns may be entered by label or column number (c1, c2, etc.), or by double-clicking on the column in the list at the left of the dialgue box.
Explore bottons such as "options" if you can't do quite what you want.

Graphs The Graph menu gives dialogue boxes for a variety of types of graphs. Note the "Edit Attributes" button on the Plot dialogue box -- this allows you to choose another plotting symbol rather than the default one.

Basic Statistics This gives you mean, median, max, min, etc. Note the item"by column" -- this allows you to find means, etc. of different treatment groups, if you have the treatment group labeled by number in a column.