The Chicago Guide to Writing about Numbers

324 Pages·2004·11.81 MB·English

by  Jane E. Miller

The
Chicago
Guide to
Writing
about
Numbers
On Writing, Editing, and Publishing
Jacques Barzun
Tricks of the Trade
Howard S. Becker
Writing for Social Scientists
Howard S. Becker
The Craft of Translation
John Biguenet and Rainer Schulte, editors
The Craft of Research
Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams
Glossary of Typesetting Terms
Richard Eckersley, Richard Angstadt, Charles M. Ellerston,
Richard Hendel, Naomi B. Pascal, and Anita Walker Scott
Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes
Robert M. Emerson, Rachel I. Fretz, and Linda L. Shaw
Legal Writing in Plain English
Bryan A. Garner
Getting It Published
William Germano
A Poet’s Guide to Poetry
Mary Kinzie
Mapping It Out
Mark Monmonier
The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science
Scott L. Montgomery
Indexing Books
Nancy C. Mulvany
Getting into Print
Walter W. Powell
A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations
Kate L. Turabian
Tales of the Field
John Van Maanen
Style
Joseph M. Williams
A Handbook of Biological Illustration
Frances W. Zweifel
Chicago Guide for Preparing Electronic Manuscripts
Prepared by the Staff of the University of Chicago Press
123
456
789
The
jane e. miller
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
Chicago
Guide to
Writing
about
Numbers
Jane E. Miller is The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
associate professor
© 2004 by The University of Chicago
in the Institute for
All rights reserved. Published 2004
Health, Health Printed in the United States of America
Care Policy, and
13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 1 2 3 4 5
Aging Research
and the Edward J. ISBN: 0-226-52630-5 (cloth)
ISBN: 0-226-52631-3 (paper)
Bloustein School
of Planning and
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Public Policy at Miller, Jane E., Ph. D.
The Chicago guide to writing about numbers / Jane E.
Rutgers University.
Miller.
Trained as a
p. cm.—(Chicago guides to writing, editing, and
demographer at publishing)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
the University of
ISBN 0-226-52630-5 (alk. paper)—ISBN 0-226-52631-3
Pennsylvania,
(pbk. : alk. paper)
she has taught 1. Technical writing. I. Title. II. Series.
T11.M485 2004
research methods
808(cid:1).0665—dc22 2004000204
and statistics for
more than a (cid:1)(cid:2)The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of the American National Standard for
decade.
Information Sciences–Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
For a study guide containing problem sets and suggested
course extensions for The Chicago Guide to Writing about
Numbers,please see www.press.uchicago.edu/books/
Miller.
To my parents,
for nurturing my love of numbers

contents
List of Tables xi
List of Figures xiii
List of Boxes xv
Acknowledgments xvii
1. Why Write about Numbers? 1
part i. principles
2. Seven Basic Principles 11
3. Causality, Statistical Significance, and Substantive Significance 33
4. Technical but Important: Five More Basic Principles 53
part ii. tools
5. Types of Quantitative Comparisons 83
6. Creating Effective Tables 102
7. Creating Effective Charts 129
8. Choosing Effective Examples and Analogies 167
part iii. pulling it all together
9. Writing about Distributions and Associations 185
10. Writing about Data and Methods 200
11. Writing Introductions, Results, and Conclusions 220
12. Speaking about Numbers 239
Appendix A.
Implementing “Generalization, Example, Exceptions” (GEE) 265
Notes 275
Reference List 279
Index 287