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CHOICE Review

This very readable book on multivariate statistics differs from most others dealing with the same topic in that there is very little emphasis on formal mathematics. Instead, the authors rely on the use of graphical techniques and numerical examples, most of which are based on one data set, to illustrate the methods with frequent references to the more conventional multivariate textbooks. Unfortunately, many of the scatter plots are marred by poor choices of symbols. The authors have avoided giving detailed instructions for using various commerical statistical packages in order to try to force readers to focus on the techniques being discussed rather than simply accept the output from some computer program. The raw data is available for the examples and the reader is encouraged to attempt the analyses. The level of difficulty is comparable to D. F. Morrison's Multivariate Statistical Methods (2nd ed., CH, Nov '76). Suitable for readers who have had at least one course in elementary statistics. F. Giesbrecht North Carolina State University