Reading reflection - Article Example

Applied statistics is defined as statistics but with more emphasis on practically applying statistics rather than studying its theoretical basis (Business Dictionary, 2013). There are numerous areas where statistics is used by statisticians to make sense of a situation including weather forecasting, stock prediction of market prices and market research to find demand of a product. In Chatfield’s paper, there are two main themes that are discussed. The first theme, understanding strategy is as important as knowing technique, and the second theme, avoiding trouble is complementary to and perquisite for, achieving optimally and therefore deserves at least equal attention (Chatfield, 1991).

There are ways in which these two main themes can be implemented when working with clients. A client who owns a health clinic may want to know the relationship between types of patients that come to the clinic and the diseases they have. Before examining the first theme, we should understand what understanding strategy is. Understanding strategy is seen as being based on factors including processes, mechanisms and forces. In implementing the first theme, the first step will be to apply understanding strategy to find out the patients diseases and demographics of the patients (age, height, eye color, weight).

The second step will be to go through the patients’ diseases data detailing the type of disease, where the disease came from, the circumstance leading to getting the disease among others. The third step will be to know the relationship between disease and the patients’ information or data. Since, the data had been understood while examining the demographics of the patients and the disease the patients are having, it becomes easy to know the relationship between disease and the patients’ data.

Moving on to the second theme, avoiding trouble while conducting statistical study is crucial in order to obtain uncompromised results. There can be a scenario where a client has a running sports shoe as a product and wants to know its demand before launching it in the market. In order to avoid the trouble of introducing this product that is not needed in the market, a proper statistical research has to be conducted. Just as Chatfield (1991) suggests, questions will need to be asked concerning the background of the product and the objectives it wants to accomplish in the market.

In this case the objectives may be concerned with selling the shoes to a demographic group that loves running sports shoes. The demographic group will consist of people from ages 18 to 35 years living in the United States living in the rural or urban areas. This will ensure that good data is collected that best describes the demographic group. In case the demographic data collected is not sufficient or is not trusted, questions concerning untrusted information should be asked to clarify any issues.

In the end, examinations should be carried out to address whether the objectives have been fulfilled or whether there are some changes that have to be carried out to make the collectable statistical data even better. This will ensure that the client gets the best statistical results concerning the demand of running sports shoes in the market before launching it. Chatfield (1991) approaches statistics in a more elaborate sequential manner. The first step he takes is formulating the problem by asking relevant questions about the background