COMMON MISTEAKS
MISTAKES IN
USING STATISTICS: Spotting and Avoiding Them
About This Web Site
Martha K. Smith retired as Professor of Mathematics in 2009 from
the University of Texas at Austin. Although her field was abstract
algebra (with some dabbling in analysis), she became interested in
statistics in the late 1990's, and has taught statistics from then
until retiring. Coming from the rigorous background of mathematics, she
naturally asked why an assertion was true and had the habit of looking
for errors. Thus as she read more in various fields that use
statistics, she became aware that there are a lot of misconceptions
about the field. Hence, as a retirement project, she is creating this
website, and has recently started a blog, Musings on Using and
Misusing Statistics.
The site assumes that the reader has had at least one course in
statistics, but tries to allow for the possibility that that might not
have been a very good course, or that a lot may have been forgotten.
The site is not intended to be all-inclusive; I have tried to give
references for further inquiry. This is also an ongoing project.
Email address
Last updated April 10, 2012