Resource Library

A cartoon that can be helpful in introducing scree plots and their interpretation in an exploratory principal components analysis to determine the number of factors to be used.  The cartoon is arendition of Edvard Munch’s famous painting “The Scream”. The cartoon was used in the January 2019 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was submitted by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso. An alternative caption: "The feeling you get when the p-value is 0.055," was submitted by Minu Bhunia, a student at University of Minnesota, and can be used in discussing the interpretation of p-values and the arbitrary nature of the 0.05 cutoff.The cartoon was drawn by British cartoonist John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University.

A cartoon to provide a nice avenue for facilitating discussions of power in significance testing.The cartoon was used in the November, 2017 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by John Dawson from Texas Tech University. The cartoon was drawn by British cartoonist John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University.

A cartoon that provides a nice avenue for facilitating discussions of the importance of modeling in making forecasts. The cartoon was used in the December, 2017 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was submitted by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso. The cartoon was drawn by British cartoonist John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University.

A cartoon to provide a nice avenue for facilitating discussions of planning for adequate sample sizes in experiments.The cartoon was used in the October, 2017 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Greg Snow from Grigham Young University. The cartoon was drawn by British cartoonist John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea by Dennis Pearl from Penn State University.

A cartoon to be used for discussing the selection of the best explanatory variable in a regression model. The cartoon was used in the March 2017 CAUSE Cartoon Caption Contest. The winning caption was submitted by Michele Balik-Meisner, a student at North Carolina State University. The drawing was created by British cartoonist John Landers based on an idea from Dennis Pearl of Penn State University. A second winning entry, by Michael Posner of Villanova University, may be found at www.causeweb.org/cause/resources/fun/cartoons/variable-wheel-ii Three honorable mentions that rose to the top of the judging in the March competition included "No no no! You randomize AFTER you select your research topic!" by Mickey Dunlap from University of Georgia; "This isn't what I meant by random variable!" by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso; and "We find this method of finding 'significant' predictors to be quicker than using stepwise regression and it is even slightly more reproducible." by Greg Snow from Brigham Young University.

A cartoon to be used for discussing the selection of the best explanatory variable in a regression model. The cartoon was used in the March 2017 CAUSE Cartoon Caption Contest. The winning caption was submitted by Michael Posner, from Villanova University. The drawing was created by British cartoonist John Landers based on an idea from Dennis Pearl of Penn State University. A second winning entry, by Michele Balik-Meisner, a student at North Carolina State University, may be found at www.causeweb.org/cause/resources/fun/cartoons/variable-wheel-i Three honorable mentions that rose to the top of the judging in the March competition included "No no no! You randomize AFTER you select your research topic!" by Mickey Dunlap from University of Georgia; "This isn't what I meant by random variable!" by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso; and "We find this method of finding 'significant' predictors to be quicker than using stepwise regression and it is even slightly more reproducible." by Greg Snow from Brigham Young University.

A song to be used in discussing the idea that the null hypothesis represents the model of no effect (with several common examples). The original music and lyrics were written in 2017 by Greg Crowther from Everett Community College. The song won an honorable mention in the 2017 A-mu-sing contest. In the current 2018 version the music is by Greg Crowther and the revised lyrics and vocals are by Greg Crowther and Larry Lesser from University of Texas at El Paso.

A Cartoon to illustrate the idea of interaction (cell means) plots for a two factor ANOVA.  The cartoon was created in October 2018 by Larry Lesser from The University of Texas at El Paso.  

A light bulb joke that can be used in discussing how the choice of model might affect the conclusions drawn.  The joke was submitted to AmStat News by Robert Weiss from UCLA and appeared on page 48 of the October, 2018 edition.

A statistics realted lightbulb joke connected to a key percentile of the normal curve.