andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2013 andrew_gelman_stats-2013-2111 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: I received the following email from someone who would like to remain anonymous: A journal editor made me change all my figures into tables. I complied, but I sent along one of your papers on the topic of figures versus tables. I got the following email in response which I thought you’d find funny: Yes, statisticians prefer figures over tables. However, you are not writing this manuscript for statisticians. Your audience will be clinicians, nurses, epidemiologists and public health professionals. The funny thing is, I think of biomedical journals (Jama, etc) as being pretty good about using graphs to convey their main results. They’re not as good as physicists, but they’re often better than statisticians!
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1 I received the following email from someone who would like to remain anonymous: A journal editor made me change all my figures into tables. [sent-1, score-1.529]
2 I complied, but I sent along one of your papers on the topic of figures versus tables. [sent-2, score-0.938]
3 I got the following email in response which I thought you’d find funny: Yes, statisticians prefer figures over tables. [sent-3, score-1.387]
4 However, you are not writing this manuscript for statisticians. [sent-4, score-0.257]
5 Your audience will be clinicians, nurses, epidemiologists and public health professionals. [sent-5, score-0.321]
6 The funny thing is, I think of biomedical journals (Jama, etc) as being pretty good about using graphs to convey their main results. [sent-6, score-1.249]
7 They’re not as good as physicists, but they’re often better than statisticians! [sent-7, score-0.212]
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same-blog 1 0.99999994 2111 andrew gelman stats-2013-11-23-Tables > figures yet again
Introduction: I received the following email from someone who would like to remain anonymous: A journal editor made me change all my figures into tables. I complied, but I sent along one of your papers on the topic of figures versus tables. I got the following email in response which I thought you’d find funny: Yes, statisticians prefer figures over tables. However, you are not writing this manuscript for statisticians. Your audience will be clinicians, nurses, epidemiologists and public health professionals. The funny thing is, I think of biomedical journals (Jama, etc) as being pretty good about using graphs to convey their main results. They’re not as good as physicists, but they’re often better than statisticians!
2 0.14979114 503 andrew gelman stats-2011-01-04-Clarity on my email policy
Introduction: I never read email before 4. That doesn’t mean I never send email before 4.
3 0.1471339 282 andrew gelman stats-2010-09-17-I can’t escape it
Introduction: I received the following email: Ms. No.: *** Title: *** Corresponding Author: *** All Authors: *** Dear Dr. Gelman, Because of your expertise, I would like to ask your assistance in determining whether the above-mentioned manuscript is appropriate for publication in ***. The abstract is pasted below. . . . My reply: I would rather not review this article. I suggest ***, ***, and *** as reviewers. I think it would be difficult for me to review the manuscript fairly.
4 0.12578884 2013 andrew gelman stats-2013-09-08-What we need here is some peer review for statistical graphics
Introduction: Under the heading, “Bad graph candidate,” Kevin Wright points to this article [link fixed], writing: Some of the figures use the same line type for two different series. More egregious are the confidence intervals that are constant width instead of increasing in width into the future. Indeed. What’s even more embarrassing is that these graphs appeared in an article in the magazine Significance, sponsored by the American Statistical Association and the Royal Statistical Society. Perhaps every scientific journal could have a graphics editor whose job is to point out really horrible problems and require authors to make improvements. The difficulty, as always, is that scientists write these articles for free and as a public service (publishing in Significance doesn’t pay, nor does it count as a publication in an academic record), so it might be difficult to get authors to fix their graphs. On the other hand, if an article is worth writing at all, it’s worth trying to conv
5 0.12460614 2172 andrew gelman stats-2014-01-14-Advice on writing research articles
Introduction: From a few years ago : General advice Both the papers sent to me appear to have strong research results. Now that the research has been done, I’d recommend rewriting both articles from scratch, using the following template: 1. Start with the conclusions. Write a couple pages on what you’ve found and what you recommend. In writing these conclusions, you should also be writing some of the introduction, in that you’ll need to give enough background so that general readers can understand what you’re talking about and why they should care. But you want to start with the conclusions, because that will determine what sort of background information you’ll need to give. 2. Now step back. What is the principal evidence for your conclusions? Make some graphs and pull out some key numbers that represent your research findings which back up your claims. 3. Back one more step, now. What are the methods and data you used to obtain your research findings. 4. Now go back and write the l
6 0.12453035 27 andrew gelman stats-2010-05-11-Update on the spam email study
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8 0.11738949 710 andrew gelman stats-2011-05-14-Missed Friday the 13th Zombie Plot Update
9 0.11533605 18 andrew gelman stats-2010-05-06-$63,000 worth of abusive research . . . or just a really stupid waste of time?
10 0.10590637 304 andrew gelman stats-2010-09-29-Data visualization marathon
11 0.1050507 530 andrew gelman stats-2011-01-22-MS-Bayes?
12 0.10467491 2245 andrew gelman stats-2014-03-12-More on publishing in journals
13 0.10149884 1393 andrew gelman stats-2012-06-26-The reverse-journal-submission system
14 0.099287078 1057 andrew gelman stats-2011-12-14-Hey—I didn’t know that!
15 0.09385629 1928 andrew gelman stats-2013-07-06-How to think about papers published in low-grade journals?
16 0.090661407 1915 andrew gelman stats-2013-06-27-Huh?
17 0.089331463 371 andrew gelman stats-2010-10-26-Musical chairs in econ journals
18 0.088808969 980 andrew gelman stats-2011-10-29-When people meet this guy, can they resist the temptation to ask him what he’s doing for breakfast??
19 0.088719964 1916 andrew gelman stats-2013-06-27-The weirdest thing about the AJPH story
20 0.085564286 855 andrew gelman stats-2011-08-16-Infovis and statgraphics update update
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same-blog 1 0.96854579 2111 andrew gelman stats-2013-11-23-Tables > figures yet again
Introduction: I received the following email from someone who would like to remain anonymous: A journal editor made me change all my figures into tables. I complied, but I sent along one of your papers on the topic of figures versus tables. I got the following email in response which I thought you’d find funny: Yes, statisticians prefer figures over tables. However, you are not writing this manuscript for statisticians. Your audience will be clinicians, nurses, epidemiologists and public health professionals. The funny thing is, I think of biomedical journals (Jama, etc) as being pretty good about using graphs to convey their main results. They’re not as good as physicists, but they’re often better than statisticians!
2 0.78758764 282 andrew gelman stats-2010-09-17-I can’t escape it
Introduction: I received the following email: Ms. No.: *** Title: *** Corresponding Author: *** All Authors: *** Dear Dr. Gelman, Because of your expertise, I would like to ask your assistance in determining whether the above-mentioned manuscript is appropriate for publication in ***. The abstract is pasted below. . . . My reply: I would rather not review this article. I suggest ***, ***, and *** as reviewers. I think it would be difficult for me to review the manuscript fairly.
3 0.73615837 1916 andrew gelman stats-2013-06-27-The weirdest thing about the AJPH story
Introduction: Earlier today I posted a weird email that began with “You are receiving this notice because you have published a paper with the American Journal of Public Health within the last few years” and continued with a sleazy attempt to squeeze $1000 out of me so that an article that I sent them for free could be available to the public. $1000 might seem like a lot, but they assured me that “we are extending this limited time offer of open access at a steeply discounted rate.” Sort of like a Vegematic but without that set of Ginsu knives thrown in for free. But then when I was responding to comments, I realized that . . . I didn’t actually remember ever publishing anything in that journal. It’s not on my list of 100+ journals. I did a search on my published papers page and couldn’t find anything closer than the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health (and that was not within the last few years). I checked Google Scholar. And then I went straight to the AJPH webpage and sea
4 0.70364201 2148 andrew gelman stats-2013-12-25-Spam!
Introduction: This one totally faked me out at first. It was an email from “Nick Bagnall” that began: Dear Dr. Gelman, I made contact last year regarding your work in the CMG: Reconstructing Climate from Tree Ring Data project. We are about to start producing the 2014 edition and I wanted to discuss this with you as we still remain keen to feature your work. Research Media are producing a special publication in February of 2014, within this report we will be working with a small selected number of PI’s with a focus on geosciences, atmospheric and geospace sciences and earth Sciences.. At this point, I’m thinking: Hmmm, I don’t remember this guy, is this some sort of collaborative project that I’d forgotten about? The message then continues: The publication is called International Innovation . . . Huh? This doesn’t sound so good. The email then goes on with some very long lists, and then finally the kicker: The total cost for each article produced in this report is fixed a
Introduction: This is hilarious ( link from a completely deadpan Tyler Cowen). I’d call it “unintentionally hilarious” but I’m pretty sure that rms knew this was funny when he was writing it. It’s sort of like when you write a top 10 list—it’s hard to resist getting silly and going over the top. It’s only near the end that we get to the bit about the parrots. All joking aside, the most interesting part of the email was this: I [rms] have to spend 6 to 8 hours *every day* doing my usual work, which is responding to email about the GNU Project and the Free Software Movement. I’d wondered for awhile what is it that Richard Stallman actually does, that is how does he spend his time (aside from giving lectures to promote his ideas and pay the bills). Emailing –> Blogging I too spend a lot of time on email, but a few years ago I consciously tried to shift a bunch of my email exchanges to the blog. I found that I was sending out a lot of information to an audience of one, information
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7 0.68054944 1800 andrew gelman stats-2013-04-12-Too tired to mock
8 0.67790824 1429 andrew gelman stats-2012-07-26-Our broken scholarly publishing system
9 0.67708671 2239 andrew gelman stats-2014-03-09-Reviewing the peer review process?
10 0.67693067 1922 andrew gelman stats-2013-07-02-They want me to send them free material and pay for the privilege
11 0.67634803 503 andrew gelman stats-2011-01-04-Clarity on my email policy
12 0.66464674 605 andrew gelman stats-2011-03-09-Does it feel like cheating when I do this? Variation in ethical standards and expectations
13 0.6621986 343 andrew gelman stats-2010-10-15-?
14 0.65303278 2013 andrew gelman stats-2013-09-08-What we need here is some peer review for statistical graphics
15 0.63440645 18 andrew gelman stats-2010-05-06-$63,000 worth of abusive research . . . or just a really stupid waste of time?
16 0.62883365 2079 andrew gelman stats-2013-10-27-Uncompressing the concept of compressed sensing
17 0.62756175 1338 andrew gelman stats-2012-05-23-Advice on writing research articles
18 0.62747067 58 andrew gelman stats-2010-05-29-Stupid legal crap
19 0.62196857 530 andrew gelman stats-2011-01-22-MS-Bayes?
20 0.62150389 1618 andrew gelman stats-2012-12-11-The consulting biz
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same-blog 1 0.98614842 2111 andrew gelman stats-2013-11-23-Tables > figures yet again
Introduction: I received the following email from someone who would like to remain anonymous: A journal editor made me change all my figures into tables. I complied, but I sent along one of your papers on the topic of figures versus tables. I got the following email in response which I thought you’d find funny: Yes, statisticians prefer figures over tables. However, you are not writing this manuscript for statisticians. Your audience will be clinicians, nurses, epidemiologists and public health professionals. The funny thing is, I think of biomedical journals (Jama, etc) as being pretty good about using graphs to convey their main results. They’re not as good as physicists, but they’re often better than statisticians!
2 0.97360998 242 andrew gelman stats-2010-08-29-The Subtle Micro-Effects of Peacekeeping
Introduction: Eric Mvukiyehe and Cyrus Samii write : We [Mvukiyehe and Samii] use original survey data and administrative data to test a theory of the micro-level impacts of peacekeeping. The theory proposes that through the creation of local security bubbles and also through direct assistance, peacekeeping deployments contribute to economic and social revitalization that may contribute to more durable peace. This theory guides the design of current United Nations peacekeeping operations, and has been proposed as one of the explanations for peacekeeping’s well-documented association with more durable peace. Our evidence paint a complex picture that deviates substantially from the theory. We do not find evidence for local security bubbles around deployment base areas, and we do not find that deployments were substantial contributors to local social infrastructure. In addition, we find a negative relationship between deployment basing locations and NGO contributions to social infrastructure.
3 0.97022462 2207 andrew gelman stats-2014-02-11-My talks in Bristol this Wed and London this Thurs
Introduction: 1. Causality and statistical learning (Wed 12 Feb 2014, 16:00, at University of Bristol): Causal inference is central to the social and biomedical sciences. There are unresolved debates about the meaning of causality and the methods that should be used to measure it. As a statistician, I am trained to say that randomized experiments are a gold standard, yet I have spent almost all my applied career analyzing observational data. In this talk we shall consider various approaches to causal reasoning from the perspective of an applied statistician who recognizes the importance of causal identification, yet must learn from available information. This is a good one. They laughed their asses off when I did it in Ann Arbor. But it has serious stuff too. As George Carlin (or, for that matter, John or Brad) might say, it’s funny because it’s true. Here are some old slides, but I plan to mix in a bit of new material. 2. Theoretical Statistics is the Theory of Applied Statistics
Introduction: I don’t want this to be a regular feature but I wanted to briefly comment on Ferguson’s open letter regarding the Keynes-was-a-ballet-and-poetry-loving-poof remarks he made the other day at that conference of financial advisors. (I’m posting this one at night, and a new post on an unrelated topic is coming in the morning, so I’m burying it as much as possible.) Ferguson reiterates that his remarks were “stupid.” The question then arises: He’s a smart guy, how did he end up saying such stupid things? Ferguson has a history of saying high-profile stupid things, and they always seem to be when he’s trying to make some sort of political point. I’m still going with my theory that Ferguson misjudged his audience; he thought they’d appreciate an anti-Keynes remark, maybe he even thought they were the kind of crowd that would enjoy cracks about gay people who like ballet and poetry. No go. Again, I’m not trying to nail the guy to the cross for this. We all make mistakes; in fact
5 0.96640843 2196 andrew gelman stats-2014-02-03-One-way street fallacy again! in reporting of research on brothers and sisters
Introduction: There’s something satisfying about seeing the same error being made by commentators on the left and the right. In this case, we’re talking about the one-way street fallacy , which is the implicit assumption of unidirectionality in a setting that actually has underlying symmetry. 1. A month or so ago we reported on an op-ed by conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, who was discussing recent research exemplified by the headline, “Study: Having daughters makes parents more likely to be Republican.” Douthat wrote all about different effects of having girls, without realizing that the study was comparing parents of girls to parents of boys. He just as well could have talked about the effects of having sons, and how that is associated with voting for Democrats (according to the study). But he did not do so; he was implicitly considering boy children to be the default. 2. A couple days ago, liberal NYT columnist Charles Blow ( link from commenter Steve Sailer) repo
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