My primary aim in this paper is quite simple. I would like to encourage you to seek out or attempt to discern the main question of interest associated with any given set of data, expressing this question in the (usually non-statistical) terminology of the subject area from whence the data came, before you even think of analysing or modeling the data. Having done this, I would also like to encourage you to view analyses, models etc. simply as means towards the end of providing an answer to the question, where again the answer should be expressed in the terminology of the subject which characterises statistical answers. Finally, and regrettably this last point is by no means superfluous, I would then encourage you to ask yourself whether the answer you gave really did answer the question originally posed, and not some other question. A secondary aim, which I cannot hope to achieve in the time permitted to me, would be to show you how many common difficulties experienced in attempting to draw inferences from data can be resolved by carefully framing the question of interest and the form of answer sought.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education