Resource Library

A cartoon that links well with the famous Isaac Newton apple tree fable and can be used for discussing the importance of data to speed innovation in any discipline from science to business to public policy. The cartoon was used in the October 2019 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Eric Vance from 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 data wrangling issues involved with bringing together data of varying file formats, naming conventions, and columns and transforming it into one cohesive data set. The cartoon was used in the September 2019 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Larry Lesser from 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 that can be used for discussions that compare and contrast survey samples versus a census. The cartoon was used in the August 2019 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Jim Alloway from EMSQ Associates. 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 a discussion of prediction – and the difference between the accuracy of a single prediction and quantifying the level of accuracy for a prediction method. The cartoon was used in the May 2019 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Mickey Dunlap from the University of Georgia. 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 May 2019 contest was “I see you come from a long line of statisticians," written by Douglas VanDerwerkenz from the U.S. Naval Academy. Doug's clever pun can be related to the multiple testing problem by talking about how a fortune teller will get some predictions right if they make a long line of them.

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 with a neat double pun that can be a nice vehicle to discuss how the expectations of non-linear functions of a random variable is not the same as the function of the expectations. The cartoon was used in the February 2019 CAUSE cartoon caption contest and the winning caption was written by Joseph Gerda from College of the Canyons. 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 teaching about confidence intervals and the quality of estimates made by a model. The cartoon is number 2311 (May, 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.