Probability and Statistical Inference [With CDROM]

It took a while on shipping, which was unfortunate because it was for a class, but the delivery still was not outside the bounds of the expected delivery time.

It's the text book for a prerequisite class for our Statistics graduate program. This book introduces essential theories in Statistics. If you review some calculus and algebra, you will be find go through the book and the more you read the more you get from this book. I've read it three times and tried its examples. This book is not the most difficult one in Statistics yet but if you are not a math major, you may want to try something else.

The 7th edition of this textbook represents a great revision of this old favorite: a separate chapter on the normal distribution and a new chapter on Bayesian statistics. Lots of new problems too. It seems like a lot of the reviews are from bitter students... yes, a course using this text requires a lot of math, but that is the only way you can fully understand probability and statistics!

I disagree with others on this one. The book is perhaps a little dry for non-mathematically oriented. If you are a math major this book will work out fine. Sometimes however, some of us who start out as math majors at the undergrad level will come to a point where we realize pure math is no longer our forte. I suppose that is when applied fields like engineering, economics or finance start looking more promising than mathematics. This distinction is however an important one. If you are into applied fields, the emphasis is on learning what methods to use and being able to solve the equations well. Theories, proofs and analysis are often nice and may be even elegant. But most likely they are an over kill. Tools and techniques are what are going to save the day. If you find yourself in this group, this book is not an easy read. I think there are excellent alternatives for those looking for books with better examples, illustrations etc., I am planning to continue in math/statistics beyond college level. So far I have not found too many things to complain about this book. It does a pretty good job of explaining the theory part without attempting to skip over the hard sections. That is why I do not think it deserves the harsh ratings it has received from other readers. The authors acknowledge that much when they say that this book is useful when used as a text for a two semester long course even for math majors. Hope this helps. Cheers

This is a wonderful book to introduce Probability and Statistical Inference to students with some background in calculus. The contents of the book start with summary and display of data, then gradually move to estimation, hypothesis testing, linear model and non-parametric methods. Several lists of distributions, confidence intervals and tests of hypothesis are given in the book. Many interesting examples are chosen to introduce some abstract concepts in probability and statistics. This book is not only useful as a text book but also useful as a reference book for further study.