Textbooks are often defined more by what they choose not to cover than by what they do cover. We’ve been guided in the choice and order of topics by several fundamental principles. First, we have tried to ensure that each new topic fits into the growing structure of understanding that we hope students will build. We know that learning a new subject such as Statistics requires putting together many new ideas, and we have tired to facilitate that process. That goal has led us to cover some topics in a different order than is found in other texts.

Part I Exploring and Understanding Data
Part II Exploring Relationships Between Variables
Part III Gathering Data
Part IV Randomness and Probability
Part V From the Data at Hand to the World at Large
Part VI Learning About the World
Part VII Inference When Variables Are Related
Appendixes