Mini-Project: Notes on the Memo

I'm phrasing my notes in a question-and-answer form.

When is the memo due?

Monday, 21 April 2008

Should I include a two-way table in my memo?

Probably not. Two-way tables are probably more of interest to your statistics peers than to your memo audience. Consider using simple summary statistics: proportions, relative risk, etc.

Did you observe any problems with the bar charts from the lightning presentations?

Yes. Each bar (or sets of bars, if you do a side-by-side stacked bar chart) is supposed to correspond to one value of the explanatory variable, not the response variable. (The portions of each bar correspond to the proportions of the different responses.) Hence, you should have two bars, one for Male and one for Female.

Should we graph numbers of responses or proportions?

Proportions.

Do you really expect us to include a graph in the memo?

Yes.

Will you take off points if we use statistics incorrectly?

Yes.

Do we need to cite sources?

Traditionally, memos do not have a sources cited section. However, no matter what form you use, you have a responsibility to clarify where text or data come from. For example, if you use parts of my description of the data, you should say something like In his notes on these data, Professor Rebelsky indicated that ....

Do we still have to talk about men and women separately?

Yes, but you can say that they are similar. I am concerned that a large proportion of both men and women ....

What if we have other questions?

Send me email.