What? Yet another statistics book? Well . . . this is a statistics book, all
right, but in my humble (and thoroughly biased) opinion, it’s not just
another statistics book.
What? Yet another Excel book? Same thoroughly biased opinion — it’s not
just another Excel book. What? Yet another edition of a book that’s not just
another statistics book and not just another Excel book? Well . . . yes. You got
me there.
So here’s the deal — for the previous two editions and for this one. Many
statistics books teach you the concepts but don’t give you a way to apply
them. That often leads to a lack of understanding. With Excel, you have a
ready-made package for applying statistics concepts.
Looking at it from the opposite direction, many Excel books show you Excel’s
capabilities but don’t tell you about the concepts behind them. Before I tell
you about an Excel statistical tool, I give you the statistical foundation it’s
based on. That way, you understand the tool when you use it — and you use
it more effectively.
I didn’t want to write a book that’s just “select this menu” and “click this
button.” Some of that is necessary, of course, in any book that shows you
how to use a software package. My goal was to go way beyond that.
I also didn’t want to write a statistics “cookbook”: When-faced-with-problem-#310-use-statistical-procedure-#214. My goal was to go way beyond that, too.
Bottom line: This book isn’t just about statistics or just about Excel — it
sits firmly at the intersection of the two. In the course of telling you about
statistics, I cover every Excel statistical feature. (Well . . . almost.I left one
out. I left it out of the first two editions, too. It’s called “Fourier Analysis.” All
the necessary math to understand it would take a whole book, and you might
never use this tool, anyway.)