Descriptive Statistics

with MINITAB

Copyright (c) 2013 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. This material is intended solely for
educational purposes by licensed users of LearningStats. It may not be copied or resold for profit.
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MINITABStatistical
Statistical
Software
Software input and output contained in thisdocument
input and output contained in this document are
are
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printed with permission of Minitab, Inc. MINITAB is a
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User Interface
Menu Bar (with drop-
down commands)

Session window (just plain

text that you can copy to
your report or spreadsheet)

Worksheet (like a
spreadsheet)
Copying Data from Excel

Most likely, you will be bringing

data in from Excel. Just
highlight it and copy it (Ctrl-C).

Warning: If your spreadsheet uses

$ format or commas (e.g., $47,352)
you must reformat to plain numbers
(e.g., 47352) or else MINITAB will
treat the data as text.
 Stats Menu

This is the menu you will use

most often (beginning with
descriptive statistics)

The –T suffix (e.g., C2-T)

designates a text column (non-
numerical data ).
 Descriptive Statistics
Text columns will not be listed as variables
because they are non-numerical.

Highlight the variable s)

you want and click
Select.

Click Statistics or Graphs to get these

sub-menus, and then select the options
you want.
Descriptive Statistics

The session window shows your

descriptive statistics. You can highlight
this text, copy it (Ctrl-C), and then paste it
into Word or Excel.

Each graph appears in a

separate window. Double click
any graph to edit it.
Editing Graphs

When you double-click a graph feature (e.g., X-axis), edit tools appear so you can
choose options, add text, draw lines or shapes, change fonts, or edit colors.
 Graph Editing
Before

Histogram of Score, with Normal Curve

10 After

Histogram of Score, with Normal Curve

Frequency

10

Frequency
0

270 280 290 300

5
Score

270 280 290 300

Caveat: This is just to show what can be done,
not to suggest that this is an improvement. Winning Score in U.S. Men's Open Golf Tournament
Pasting a Graph

When you copy a MINITAB graph to Word or Excel, use

Paste Special > Picture, to make sure that no link to
MINITAB is retained (which can cause problems).
Some Graph Types
 Graphs: Examples
Dotplot of Score

Histogram shows slight skewness with possible high

outliers, a view supported by probability plot.
However, the empirical CDF does not differ greatly
from a normal curve.

Empirical CDF of Score

272 276 280 284 288 292 296
Normal
Score
Mean 280.7
100
StDev 4.980
Probability Plot of Score N 64

Normal - 95% CI 80
99.9
Mean 280.7
StDev 4.980 60

Percent
99 N 64
AD 0.507
95 P-Value 0.194 40
90
80
70 20
Percent

60
50
40
30 0
20 Histogram (with Normal Curve) of Score
10 270 275 280 285 290 295 300
Mean 280.7
5 12Score
StDev 4.980
N 64
1
10
0.1 Boxplot of Score
260 270 280 290 300
300
Score 8

Frequency
295 6

290 4
Score

2
285

0
280 272 276 280 284 288 292 296 300
Score

275

270
Copying MinitabText

Highlight the text results

you want to copy from
Minitab’s session
window. Right-click and
choose Copy (or Ctrl-C).
 Paste In Excel

When you paste the Minitab text

into Excel, it goes into one
column. You will use Text to
Columns to get the fields aligned
into Excel columns, using spaces
as separators (next page).
Text to Columns
Use Text to Columns to get the
fields aligned into Excel
columns, using the Delimited
option with spaces and tabs as
delimiters.
Result

The result (with a little

format cleanup) is what
you want. You can now
edit these numbers.
Normality Test
MINITAB’s normality test is a probability plot.
A small p-value (near 0) and a non-linear plot
would suggest non-normality. Except for a
few unusual tail values, this isn't too far from
normal. The p-value (.194) is not small
enough to reject normality at the usual
significance levels (e.g., a = .05).

Probability Plot of Score

Normal - 95% CI
99.9
Mean 280.7
StDev 4.980
99
N 64
AD 0.507
95 P-Value 0.194
90
80
70
Percent
60
50
40
30
20
10
5

0.1
260 270 280 290 300
Score
Graphical Summary
MINITAB’s Graphical Summary is an especially
nice display, because it combines several plots
(histogram, box plot, confidence intervals) with the
most common statistics (mean, standard deviation,
quartiles, p-value for normality test).

Summary for Score

Anderson-Darling Normality Test
A-Squared 0.51
P-Value 0.194

Mean 280.66
StDev 4.98
Variance 24.80
Skewness 0.73653
Kurtosis 1.50153
N 64

Minimum 272.00
1st Q uartile 277.25
Median 280.00
3rd Q uartile 283.75
276 282 288 294 Maximum 298.00
95% Confidence I nterval for Mean
279.41 281.90
95% Confidence I nterval for Median
279.00 282.00
95% Confidence I nterval for StDev
95% Confidence I ntervals
4.24 6.03
Mean

Median

279.0 279.5 280.0 280.5 281.0 281.5 282.0

 Custom Histograms
Histogram (with Normal Curve) of Score
Mean 280.7
12
StDev 4.980
N 64

10

Frequency
6

0
269 275 281 287 293 299
Score
Histogram (with Normal Curve) of Score
18 Mean 280.7
StDev 4.980
16 N 64

14

12

Frequency
10

0
270 276 282 288 294 300
Score

Histogram (with Normal Curve) of Score

35 Mean 280.7
StDev 4.980
N 64
30

25

Frequency
It’s easy to see how the histogram’s appearance 20

is affected by different bins. Click on the X-axis 15

to change the intervals, scale, and bin type (e.g., 10

Cutpoint versus Midpoint) 5

0
270 276 282 288 294 300
Score
Storing Statistics

You can store the various

statistics in the worksheet.
 Other Graphs
Stem-and-Leaf Time Plot

Time Series Plot of Score

300

295

290
Score

285

280

275

270
1946 1952 1958 1964 1970 1976 1982 1988 1994 2000 2006
Index
Where Did My Graphs Go?

Don’t panic. Just click on

Window to see a list of all the
graphs you have created.
 Summary

MINITAB is easy after you get started

Customize graphs before you copy them
To copy graphs to Word, use Paste Special