October 17, 2011

Stat of the Week Competition: October 15-21 2011

Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.

Here’s how it works:

  • Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday October 21 2011.
  • Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
  • The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of October 15-21 2011 inclusive.
  • Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.

Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.

The fine print:

  • Judging will be conducted by the blog moderator in liaison with staff at the Department of Statistics, The University of Auckland.
  • The judges’ decision will be final.
  • The judges can decide not to award a prize if they do not believe a suitable statistic has been posted in the preceeding week.
  • Only the first nomination of any individual example of a statistic used in the NZ media will qualify for the competition.
  • Employees (other than student employees) of the Statistics department at the University of Auckland are not eligible to win.
  • The person posting the winning entry will receive a $20 iTunes voucher.
  • The blog moderator will contact the winner via their notified email address and advise the details of the $20 iTunes voucher to that same email address.
  • The competition will commence Monday 8 August 2011 and continue until cancellation is notified on the blog.

Nominations

  • avatar
    Rob McKernan

    Statistic: Refer to website (as linked below).
    Source: NZ Labour Party – Red Alert Blog – Trevor Mallard
    Date: 18/10/2011

    In the first graph, the adjusting of the scale in the y-axis creates a wholly false impression as to the degree of change in per capita GDP.

    The second graph is of average annual gdp growth by government in office.
    However the length of term of each government differs in length, but you can’t actually tell this information from the graph.
    Also it does not account for policy lag effects, ie a policy change now may not affect GDP output for a number of years.

    12 years ago

  • avatar

    […] New Zealand website runs a weekly competition to find the worst assault on statistics and quantitative reasoning made by a NZ publication.  The winner nets […]

    12 years ago