Elementary Statistics- Ninth Edtion Description:

Elementary Statistics, Ninth Edtion review:
2 stars (A Disorganized and Confusing Textbook.) - Explanations of concepts are constantly interrupted mid-paragraph by various secondary explanations, questions and diagrams that do not tie in well with the central concept that was being explained. I find it very difficult to follow when each page is scattered with little side projects for the student to try with the cd-rom or with a calculator. Just glancing at any page it is hard to find the heart of the material. I much prefer a text that focuses on straight forward explanations of concepts rather than what seems to me as mere gimmicks.
4 stars (Solid, but not spectacular textbook) - I was assigned this book for use in teaching an introductory statistics course. The CD is quite good, containing a PowerPoint presentation outline for each chapter. It also has a section of excellent examples, but it only goes through the first three chapters, which is unfortunate.



Each chapter begins with a "Chapter Case Study", which I found to be worthless. The text and examples in each section & chapter are pretty good, about what would be expected from a textbook. What is different is the "Technology Instructions" inserted throughout, for doing stats with Minitab, Excel XP, and the TI-83 Plus calculator (which my school requires). It's needed, because the TI-83 manual is not very good.



Where the book could be better, for my class, is in describing how a student can verify his/her own work. Too many times students make a small mistake early in a problem, which leads to a non-sensical answer -- if the student stops to evaluate the meaning of it (for example, a probability greater than 1). Particularly in hypothesis testing, students frequently build the null and alternative hypotheses backwards, and then end up with a conclusion statement that clearly contradicts the data. While this book is very clear about a five-step approach to *doing* the test, it should have included a sixth step -- verifying that your answer makes sense!



Also, some of the problems and examples have errors, as well as vaguely worded questions. This seems to be (unfortunately) typical of all textbooks -- or maybe I'm just jaded.



Overall, it's a pretty decent book for a lower-level college statistics course. I would have given it 3.5 stars on its own. The CD is worth the extra half-star. If the CD examples went beyond chapter 3 through the whole book it would get five.