ALPHA graphic Seminar   (STAT:5090 or 22S:170)

Fall 2011
Thursdays, 2:00-2:50 PM
75 Schaeffer Hall
Course coordinator: Russ Lenth, 335-0814, russell-lenth@uiowa.edu

[ ALPHA = "A Little Practice, Help, and Advice." ]
This seminar is for first-year graduate students in Statistics. We will gather weekly to talk about the program, learn a little bit about statistical literature and the research interests of our faculty. There will be a few small reading or writing assignments, but mostly discussion.

Date Topics, Link(s) to materials
Aug 25 Organizational session, orientation to our graduate program.
See the syllabus
Tips for success in graduate school
Sep 1 Professional societies (ASA, IMS), Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice
Sep 8 Writing; Assignment for Sep 22; also, see this comparison of bibTeX styles (I suggest newapa for general use)
Sep 15 General discussion
Sep 22 Assignment for Sep 29: Read:
Agresti, A. and Coull, B. (1998), Approximate is better than "exact" for interval estimation of binomial proportions, The American Statistician, 25, 119-126.
Sep 29 Assignment for Oct 6: Browse the journals section in the library and find an article in a statistics journal that interests you. Read it and write a few notes to yourself so you can describe it in seminar. As always, note how it is written and organized. This should be a journal article, not a magazine artile (like Chance, Stats, or Significance).
Also, if you did not do it as assigned before, find and read the Agresti-Coull article.
Oct 6 Discuss your readings; discuss indexes and other reference aids.
Nov 10 Jim Seyfer and Amanda Wilson from Career Services will tell you about internships, etc.
Dec. 1 Lab work -- see tutorial