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Reading List

Weekly reading

On these pages you will find the weekly readings. Please take these seriously, and prepare them for the lectures and seminars. The module is cumulative, so you will need to work consistently to stay on top of things. Otherwise, it is like a wall that has bricks missing in it. It will become unstable, and eventually collapse if too much is missing...

General sources

I often compare books on statistics with cheese. They all do essentially the same thing, but tastes differ, and whilst a stilton might be too strong for you, you might be really fond of cheddar. Therefore, here is a list of core books, each presenting information in different ways. Have a look around, and try to find the one that is right for you. I would recommend buying the book you like, as it will serve as a reference not only throughout the course, but also afterwards. Quantitative methods are like a language, if you don't practise them, you easily forget, and these books will be a great help to look things up.

  • Agresti, A. and B. Finlay. 2008. Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences, 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
  • Coolidge, Frederick L. 2012. Statistics: A Gentle Introduction. Sage
  • Diamond, Ian and Jefferies, Julie. 2000. Beginning Statistics: An Introduction for Social Scientists. Sage
  • Lomax, Richard G. and Debbie L. Hahs-Vaughn. 2012. An Introduction to Statistical Concepts, 3rd edition. Routledge

There are two books relevant for Stata, the statistical programme we will be using to analyse data. The first one is the one I will be using most, the second one is, again, more of a reference book.

  • Acock, Alan C. 2014. A Gentle Introduction to Stata, Fourth Edition, Stata Press
  • Hamilton, Lawrence. 2008. Statistics with Stata - International Edition. Stata Press

Additional resources

There are various additional resources available for the topics we cover in each week. Please check the reading for each week (see links on the right) for these materials.