Let me thank everyone who has replied either
privately and through the newsgroups, so far. Do keep the
comments coming. I will track down all the recommended
books that we have at Purdue.
Let me reply here to the comments of Dr. Burrill:
On 23 Jul 2000, Donald Burrill wrote:
> Depends on where you're coming from and where you want to go, inter alia.
> Your e-mail address suggests your background may be in physical sciences,
> and a text written by, or for, physical scientists might be most useful.
Yes, but I will soon be applying to study in a statistics department,
so I'm also interested in the generalists' point of view too. It is also
good to be aware of which books are considered to be classics in other
fields, e.g., the Cohen & Cohen book in behavioral sciences that has
been highly recommended to me in these past few days. A good book
is a good book and I will take a look at them, and have no problem
cutting across disciplinary boundaries to do so.
> However, there is some evidence that in statistics (perhaps more
> than in most disciplines) there is a strong interaction between writing
> style and reading style, especially at introductory levels; and perhaps
> your best strategy would be to immerse yourself for a time in your
> university library, reviewing a fair spectrum of books that deal with
> multiple regression, and taking home the ones you find most eminently
> readable.
I did so at our math library, and walked out with only Montgomery & Peck,
impressed with it but disappointed at almost everything else.
However, I suspect that the other good books were so popular that they
were checked out. Hence my post on these newsgroups.
> "Not concise" is not necessarily bad. When one understands the stuff,
> concise is preferable; but when one doesn't, more verbose textual style
> can be helpful. I suspect there's a distinction in there somewhere
> between a style that's useful and helpful to learn from, and a style that
> facilitates retrieval (as it were from a reference) after the material
> has been well learned.
In principle I agree with your statements here. However, I've found
the Neter et al. book neither useful to learn from nor handy as a
reference. I've enjoyed verbose books (D.J. Griffiths on Electrodynamics,
for instance) but Neter et al. are verbose to a fault. But
this may just be a reflection of my lack of patience.
> I remember seeing some years ago a report of
> research on statistics teaching (sorry, can't recall details to cite) in
> which the textbooks preferred by the students were distinctly NOT the
> textbooks preferred by the instructors, and the students' preferences
> were rather strongly inclined toward the more verbose textbooks.
This happens occasionally in physics too (e.g, the Feynman Lectures).
Thanks for the comments,
Chris
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