Turning Number Into Knowledge, by Jon Koomey
Posted by Allan on April 25th, 2008The revised and updated 2d edition of Jon Koomey’s book Turning Numbers into Knowledge: Mastering the Art of Problem Solving will be released on 28 April 2008 by Analytics Press http://www.analyticspress.com/. It’s now in both paperback and hard cover.
The 2d edition includes a new chapter on data sharing web sites, an epilogue summarizing Dr. Koomey’s experience debunking an urban legend, an expanded further reading section, numerous updates and improvements throughout, and a new foreword from John P. Holdren, Past President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, who writes: ““There is nothing else like this book out there. Nobody who deals with problems where numbers matter — and everybody in today’s world really needs to — should be without it.â€
Scientific team leaders and managers can just hand the book to their new recruits and say “This book describes my expectations for the quality, rigor, and transparency of your analytical work,” saving them hours of explanations and avoiding the time wasted by bad graphs, poorly documented tables, and sloppy data analysis.
Students can use the book to build and hone their analytical skills–their future bosses, customers, and readers will thank them for it. Journalists can use the book to understand the scientific process and how it interacts (for better and for worse) with the mainstream media.
And professors and supervisors can use the book (as colleagues at UC Berkeley, Stanford, Georgetown, Rochester Institute of Technology, Global Business Network, Dupont, Detroit Edison, and other institutions have done) as a training manual to teach the tricks of the trade that aren’t often covered in typical undergraduate and graduate classes.
Some of the book’s chapters can be downloaded in PDF format, as described below. Feel free to distribute these URLs to others as you see fit (the files are protected under a Creative Commons license that allows copying but not modification or commercial use).
The front matter includes the table of contents, the foreword, and the preface (which contains an annotated chapter list):
http://www.analyticspress.com/keydata/FrontmatterTNIK2ded.pdf
Chapter 4 describes the importance of peer review to the scientific process:
http://www.analyticspress.com/keydata/ch4TNIK2ded.pdf
Chapter 11 defines “critical thinking” and describes how that process can improve your analytical work:
http://www.analyticspress.com/keydata/ch11TNIK2ded.pdf
Chapter 28 describes the uses and limitations of models, both simple and complex:
http://www.analyticspress.com/keydata/ch28TNIK2ded.pdf
You can send comments or questions to Dr. Koomey at jgkoomey@stanford.edu or http://www.koomey.com. If you have suggestions for people or institutions who should hear about the book, please let him know.