Lyrics © 2016 Mary McLellan
may sing to the tune of the Irish folk song "Michael Finnegan"
Scale, box, fences, whiskers
Scale, box, fences, whiskers
Scale, box, fences, whiskers
Put those outliers on
Scale, box, fences, whiskers
Scale, box, fences, whiskers
Scale, box, fences, whiskers
Label! Label! Label!
Scale, box, fences, whiskers
Scale, box, fences, whiskers
Scale, box, fences, whiskers
That’s how you make a boxplot
Lyric ©2017 Lawrence Mark Lesser
To the tune of “From a Distance” by Julie Gold
With statistics,
many soldiers were saved
in the Crimean War.
With statistics,
Florence Nightingale
found what made the death rate soar.
With statistics, Florence graphed the data
in innovative ways:
A rose diagram, circular histogram,
a polar area display.
With statistics,
uncleanliness was found
to have caused those extra deaths.
With statistics,
Florence led reform
to implement what was best.
With statistics, she founded modern nursing
with brilliance and compassion:
She gave herself to the cause of health,
she took bold action.
God is teaching us, God is teaching us,
God is teaching us through statistics.
With statistics,
England and India
were healthier places to live.
Oh, statistics
shone like the lamp
Florence brought from bed to bed.
With statistics, she set an example
of vision and of strength:
More than pie charts, her mind and heart
would light and lead the way.
Lyrics © 2017 Dennis K. Pearl and Lawrence M. Lesser
may sing to the tune of "You've Got a Friend" by Carole King
When your pattern is muddled
and just how the data spans
and nothing, nothing flows just right.
Close your eyes and think curvy lines
and soon it will be there
to brighten up data with ev’ry byte.
You just call a pattern by name
and you know whenever it can,
the series is running, oh yeah baby, to add points again.
Winter, spring, summer or fall,
seasonality is the call.
It’ll be there, yeah, yeah, yeah
You've got a trend.
If the points above your line
should be randomly spread out,
and give that old balance with those below;
keep their fit together
and see my line in the cloud now.
Soon you'll see the errors you don’t ignore.
You just call a pattern by name
and you know whenever it can,
the series is running, oh yes it will, to add points again.
Winter, spring, summer or fall, yeah
seasonality is the call.
It'll be there, yes it will.
Ain't it good to know that you've got a trend.
When data are uncontrolled
they'll spurt you, and avert you
and take control if you let them.
Oh yeah, don't you let 'em now.
You just call a pattern by name
and you know whenever it can,
the series is running, oh yes it will, to add points again.
Winter, spring, summer or fall, yeah
seasonality is the call.
It'll be there, yes it will.
You’ve got a trend.
You've got a trend, yeah.
Ain't it good to know you've got a trend.
It’s cyclical, so I’ll say it again:
Oh, yeah yeah, you've got a trend.
by Eveline Pye
A computer printout
A stack of paper
Like a shallow box
Filled with facts
Inviting me
To join them.
I slide my fingers
Between overlapping sheets
And browse between the columns
Letting numbers lead me
Into dark tunnels
Until pictures appear
On cave walls and
Trends emerge
Out of random rock
A journey into uncertainty
Borehole deep
Below superficial knowledge
I search for a richer vein
A rabbi, a priest, and a statistician walk into a bar. The rabbi walks up to the bar and says "I'll have 4 bottles of wine for my services on Saturday morning."
The priest walks up to the bar and says "I'll have 6 bottles of wine for my services Sunday morning."
The statistician walks up to the bar and says "This is interesting data. I'll have the bar-graph."
There is a magic in graphs. The profile of a curve reveals in a flash a whole situation - the life history of an epidemic, a panic, or an era of prosperity. The curve informs the mind, awakens the imagination, convinces.
Henry David Hubbard (1870 - 1943)
...making an appeal to the eye when proportion and magnitude are concerned, is the best and readiest method of conveying a distinct idea.
William Playfair (1759 - 1823)
At their best, graphics are instruments for reasoning about quantitative information.
Edward R. Tufte (1942 - )
I love pictures. Formulas and symbols - I don't especially like them.
David Blackwell (1919 - 2010)