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1.1 Overview
In this chapter we will present a working definition of "statistics" and describe some common practices. Specifically:
- we will define statistics and talk about its usefulness in general terms
- we will discuss what a random sample is, how to pick one, and why it is useful
- we will discuss some terminology that will be used throughout the course such as
- categorical and numeric variables
- ordinal and nominal variables
- heterogeneous and homogeneous distribution
There will be an end-of-chapter quiz, so make sure, in particular, you know what all of the above terms mean.