Math 113 - Statistics Notebook - 50 points

You are to gather examples of uses and abuses of statistics during the semester. The examples may come from newspapers, magazines, television, radio, etc. The purpose is to help you become aware of the role of statistics in society, and to begin questioning the validity of the statistics.

Each example should contain the following information:

• Source: Indicate the name and date of the newspaper or magazine from which the article was obtained. If the example is from a broadcast media, then indicate the station, date, and, if possible, the program or commercial.
• Comments: Comment on whether the example is a good use or an abuse of statistics. I am not looking for comments about the article, but about the statistics within the article. This should be at least a sentence. It does not need to be more than a paragraph per article. Tell whether you thought it was a good use or an abuse and why.

I will collect your notebooks twice during the semester. Once at midterm, and once at the end. Exact dates are listed on the calendar.

There should be a minimum of ten articles per half-semester. You should be collecting these examples as the semester progresses. Do not collect all of your articles the first day or the last day. You do not have to keep the articles from the first half of the semester for the second half.

Each half-semester's worth of articles is worth twenty-five (25) points for a total of fifty (50) points. 15 of the 25 points are for having the required number of articles. 10 of the 25 points are for having the source, date, and comments about each of the articles.

There are always questions about what constitutes a "statistics" article and what I'm looking for.

A box-score from the sports page does not qualify as an article referring to statistics (it only gives the raw data). An article from the sports page giving the top ten salaries for a sport would. You should look for articles that refer to a "sample", "survey", or similar word indicating that data was collected.