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Statisitcal Notation

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Some Common Greek Letters for Social Statistics.
 
There are several different ways to pronounce Greek, but these are the most common usages in stats:
 
Alpha (AL-fuh)
 
Beta (BAY-duh)
 
Gamma (GAMM-uh)
 
Delta (DEL-tuh) 
 
Lambda (LAM-duh)
 
Mu (Mew)
 
Pi  (Pie)       
 
Sigma (SIG-muh)
Phi (F-eye)
 
Psi  (Sigh) 
          
Chi  (K-eye)  This is often used:  "Chi Squared"
 
 
Mathematical Notations Include:
+  = addition
 -  = subtraction
x  = multiply
(  ) = do the notations within the parenthesis before moving on
%  = percentage
cum % = cumulative percentage
#  =  the number of items
and  other calculations such as: divide, take the square root, square a number
 
Total sample = N

Portion of the sample = n
 
Mean = M
 
Standard Deviation = SD
 
F-ratio = F(numerator df,
                 denominator df)
 
t-tests (all types)  =  t(df)

  • ab = (a)(b) = a ´ b = "a times b"
  • > = greater than
    • ³ "equal to or greater than; not less than"
  • < = less than
    • £ "equal to or less than; not more than"
  • ~ "approximately equal to"
    • compare: 1 ~ k = from 1 to k inclusive
  • ¹ "not equal to"

    • p = 3.14159 . . .

  • f(x) = function of x
  • n! = n factorial = (n)(n - 1)( n - 2) . . . (2)(1)

    • 2:n! = the first 2 terms of n! = (n)(n - 1)

  • n*k = n to the kth power
    • thus, n*2 = n to the 2nd power = n²
    • or for complex exponents, n*(2x - y) = n to the power (2x - y)
    • Ök = the [square] root of k
      • thus, 5Ök = 5 times the square root of k
    • *3Ö(k) = the cube [etc] root of k
      • thus, 5*3Ök or more fully 5(*3Ök)= 5 times the cube root of k
      • and 5*3Ö(n - 1) or 5[*3Ö(n - 1)] = 5 times the cube root of (n - 1)

    • We represent sums by the usual capital sigma in the Symbol font, thus

      • S(n) = sum of all values of n

      When precision is required, the range can be explicitly specified, thus:

      • S(n)[1 ~ k] = sum of the 1st through kth values of n, inclusive

      Infinity is a place that none of us will ever get to. For the infinity symbol, we substitute the practice of simply leaving the endpoint unspecified, thus:

      • S(n)[1 ~ ] = sum of the 1st value of n, and indefinitely beyond that
      • S(n)[ ~ ] = sum from a very large minus to a very large plus value

      or as many values of n, in the indicated directions, as you may have the taste and time to compute.

      The trailing bracket convention can be used as a general substitute for subscripts, thus

      • n[i] = The ith value of n

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