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I'm going to be starting stats graduate school in a bit, and as someone whose undergraduate degree didn't involve any statistics, can someone recommend a good reference on the intuition behind most of statistics? A lot of books cover the mathematical definitions, but I haven't found something that explains the intuition behind things, nor the best practices.

As an example, in econometrics, Angrist and Pischke's Mostly Harmless Econometrics is a book about best practices in experimental economics. Is there a similar book for statisticians?

Andre Silva
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Shannon S.
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  • I quite enjoyed Statistics Done Wrong: https://www.amazon.com/Statistics-Done-Wrong-Woefully-Complete/dp/1593276206/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468952895&sr=8-1&keywords=statistics+done+wrong – Matthew Drury Jul 19 '16 at 18:28
  • Related: http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/29380/a-statistics-book-that-explains-using-more-images-than-equations/29392#29392. The Kennedy book mentioned there is good. Harell's Regression Modeling Strategies might also fit the bill. – dimitriy Jul 19 '16 at 18:50
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    Could you explain what you mean by "the intuition" and what "most of statistics" might be? A huge number of books cover theory and explanations; and "most of statistics" couldn't possibly be covered in any single text. – whuber Jul 19 '16 at 19:15

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I've found that Harvey Motulsky's book, Intuitive Biostatistics, to be extremely well written in describing the concepts typically used in the fields of medicine and biostatistics. This isn't a general book on statistics, but many of the methods can be generalized. He spends time on the intuition of a given method and best practices for interpretation.

Ashe
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