Say It With Figures

292 Pages·1985·10.921 MB·English

by  Hans Zeisel

SIXTH EDITION
A NEW EDITION
OF THE
CLASSIC WORkK
IN THE FIELD OF
BA DIALS TICS
(4
W 7B 1994
Digitized by the Internet Archive
In 2021 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation
https://archive.org/details/sayitwithfiguresO000Zeis
SAY IT WITH FIGURES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hans Zeisel is Professor of Law and Sociology
Emeritus at the University of Chicago where he
pioneered the application of social science to
law. Earlier he had a distinguished career in
public opinion and market research; in 1980 he
was inducted into the Market Research Hall of
Fame. He has written on a wide variety of
topics, ranging from research methodology and
history to law enforcement, juries, and Shakes-
peare. He has been elected fellow of the Amer-
ican Statistical Association and of the American
Association of the Advancement of Science.
SAY IT WITH
FIGURES
SIXTH EDITION
HANS ZEISEL
r
1817
HARPER & ROW, PUBLISHERS, New York
Cambridge, Philadelphia, San Francisco,
London, Mexico City, SAo Paulo, Singapore, Sydney
To the Memory
of
Paul Felix Lazarsfeld
SAY IT WITH FIGURES, (Sixth Edition). Copyright © 1985 by Harper & Row,
Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No
part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
articles and reviews. For information address Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.,
10 East 53rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10022. Published simultaneously in Canada
by Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited, Toronto.
Designer: C. Linda Dingler
a
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Zeisel, Hans.
Say it with figures.
Includes index.
1. Social sciences—Statistical methods. 2. Statistics. I. Title.
HA29.Z4 1985 001.4'22 84-48207
ISBN 0-06-181982-4 85 86 87 88 8910987654321
ISBN 0-06-131994-5 (pbk.) 85 86 87 88 8910987654321
Contents
Preface
Introduction to the Fifth Edition by Paul F. Lazarsfeld
From the Introduction to the First Edition by Paul F.
Lazarsfeld xiv
PART |. THE PRESENTATION OF NUMBERS
1. The Function of Percent Figures
Facilitating Comparisons 3 Deemphasizing the
Numbers 6 Causal Implications 7 Percents and
Percentage Points 9 WrongEnd Up 9 __ The Ceiling
Effect 10 Summary 13
2. Presentation Problems 14
Numbers and Percents 14 Percents Running Over 100
15 Subtotals 16 Decimals 16 Percent, Per
Mille, Per 100,000 18 Special Ratios 19 When
Captions Need Explaining 21 The Percentage Chain
22 Of100 People 23 Graphs 24 Tables as Bar
Graphs 24 Computations at a Glance 25 The
“Gestalt” 25 One Picture Is Worth a Thousand
Numbers 29 Summary 33
3. In Which Direction Should Percents Be Run? 34
The Cause-and-Effect Rule 34 The Ambiguity of
“Cause” 36 Digging Out the Information 38 The
Proviso of Representative Sampling 39 The Total
Column 45 Summary 46
vi Contents
How to Handle Don’t Knows and No Answers 48
The Legitimate Don’t Knows 48 The Failure Don’t
Knows 49 What Not to Do with the Failure Don’t
Knows 50 What to Do with the Failure Don’t Knows
51 Reducing the Numbers of Don’t Knows 53
Asking for Numbers 54 Indefinite Numerals 54
Don’t Knows with a Special Meaning 56 Facilitating
Recali 58 Reducing the Number of Legitimate Don’t
Knows 58 Statistical Lie Detection 59 Census
Eliminates 207,000 Don’t Knows 62 Summary 63
Tables of More than Two Dimensions 65
The Problem of Reduction 65 The Principle Illustrated
68 Making a Dichotomy 69 An Average
Representing the Column 71 Rank Orders 73
Reducing a Trichotomy 75 A Four-Dimensional Table
a Summary 82
Indices 83
Judgment Indices 84 A Complex Average 86
Index Object and Index Formula 88 = Ambiguous Labels
89 Effect of “Aging” 90 Baseball Indices 91
Olympic Scoring 95 Interrelated Percentages 97
Sociometric Indices 100 Spearman Coefficient of Rank
Correlation 104 | Custom-Made Indices 108
Summary 110
PART Il. THE TOOLS OF CAUSAL ANALYSIS 111
The Cross-Tabulation Refines 115
Purposes of Cross Tabulating 115 Different Types
117. _—‘T he Additional Factor Refines 118 Correlations
near Zero 120 Additional Factor Reveals Limiting
Conditions 123 Additional Factor Has an Independent
Effect 124 Summary 126
Contents vil
8. Experimental Evidence mw 188
The Problem 128 The Controlled Randomized
Experiment 130 The Miracle of Random Selection
131 Discrimination 133 Generalizing from an
Experiment 134 Designating Experimental and Control
Subjects 136 Statistical Error 137 The Natural
Experiment 137 The Half-a-Loaf Experiment 139
Summary 142
Analysis of Nonexperimental Data 143
A Different Problem 143 Full Explanation 145
Partial Explanation 148 Spurious Correlations 151
Partly Spurious Correlation 152 The Correlation Is
Reversed 155 Spurious Noncorrelation 156 True
and Spurious Correlations 157 “Before” and “After”
Comparison 159 Lateral Analysis 162 Summary
165
166
10. Regression Analysis
The Scatter Diagram 166 The Correlation Coefficient
166 Regression toward the Mean 169 The
Regression Fallacy 171 How Big a Change? 172
How Much Is Explained? 172 Multiple Regression
177. The Purpose of Regression Analysis 179 Causal
Analysis of Observational Data 180 Traps 182
Summary 185
11. Reason Analysis |: The Accounting Scheme 186
The Art of Asking, “Why?” 186 Formulating the
Problem 188 The Exploratory Interview 189
Developing the Accounting Scheme 191 The Push-and-
Pull Model 194 Reason Assessment 195
Multidimensional Models 195 The Art of Asking, “Why
Not?” 198 The Time Dimension 199 _ Precipitating
Events 200 Phases of Decision 201 Narrowing the
Choice 202 Summary 203
viii Contents
12. Reason Analysis II: Data Collection and
Interpretation 204
Accounting Scheme and Questionnaire 204 Probing
205 Verifying Answers 207 How Far to Search?
208 Primary and Secondary Reasons 210 Summary
215
13. The Panel 216
Overview 216 Concepts Covering Time 218 Shifts
and Changes 218 Turnover and Net Change 221
Multiple Shifts 223 Shifts at Several Points in Time
224 Operational Analysis 226 Measuring Loyalty
228 Who Shifted and Why 233 The Bandwagon
Effect 235 Effects of Advertising 236 Reversal of
Cause and Effect 242 Bias from Prior Interviewing
243 ‘Panel Mortality 249 Summary 250
14. Triangulation 252
Origin of the Concept 252 Repeated Observations
253 Gauging Imperfect Samples 253 Triangulating
Simulated Results 254 Experiences in Different Places
255 Cross Examination 257 Failure to Aggregate
the Evidence 259 Correcting False Counts 259
The Conviction-Prone Jurors 261 Summary 262
Author Index 263
Subject Index 265