Resource Library

A cartoon designed to support a discussion of using dummy variables to code for categories of a categorical variable in a regression model (e.g. 5 are needed when there are 6 categories). The cartoon was used in the February 2020 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Dominic Matriccino, a student at the University of Virginia. 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 second winner in the February 2020 contest was "The grass really is greener on the homogeneity side," written by Jennifer Ann Morrow, an instructor from University of Tennessee. Jennifer's cartoon caption can be used in discussing the importance of within-group variability in judging differences between groups and the difficulty when the groups being compared have different levels of variability.

A cartoon that supports the importance of coding, and the how statistical computations and simulations using technology has created a variety of new possibilities in statistics. The cartoon was used in the December 2019 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Nicholas Varberg, a student at the University of Colorado Boulder. 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 can be used for discussing the difference between a bar graph and a histogram and how they are used. The cartoon was used in the July 2019 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Greg Crowther from Everett Community College. 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 can be used for discussing the traditional theme of "Correlation does not imply Causation" as well as what observational evidence does provide the most convincing evidence of a causal relationship. The cartoon was used in the June 2019 CAUSE cartoon caption contest. 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 can be used in the classroom to highlight different approaches to research. The cartoon was used in the April 2019 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and this winning caption was written by Jennifer Ann Morrow from The University of Tennessee. 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 co-winning caption in the April 2019 contest was "Since the dawn of time, some were meant to draw pictures. Others were meant to draw conclusions... based on statistics!" written by Joe Brickman, a student at John Carroll University.

A cartoon with a neat pun on the generation of data and a way to discuss the changing landscape of technologies for dealing with data. The cartoon was used in the March 2019 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Laila Poisson from The Henry Ford Health System. 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 suitable for use in introducing the topic of classification. The cartoon is number 2273 (February, 2020) from the webcomic series at xkcd.com created by Randall Munroe. Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites under a Creative Commons attribution-non-commercial 2.5 license.

A cartoon suitable for use in teaching about interpreting graphs (e.g. ask: “what does the shaded area in this graph really represent?”). The cartoon is number 2271 (February, 2020) from the webcomic series at xkcd.com created by Randall Munroe. Free to use in the classroom a

A cartoon suitable for use in introducing the topic of data ethics. The cartoon is number 2239 (December, 2019) from the webcomic series at xkcd.com created by Randall Munroe. Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites under a Creative Commons attribution-non-commercial 2.5 license.

A cartoon suitable for use in teaching about how context matters for interpreting events (there’s a wide latitude for interpreting this cartoon). The cartoon is number 2233 (November, 2019) from the webcomic series at xkcd.com created by Randall Munroe. Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites under a Creative Commons attribution-non-commercial 2.5 license.