This is another strand in Ehrenberg's work. In 1975, he first published Data Reduction. The book has been revised, reprinted and translated (Ehrenberg 1981). It maintains that much of the approach to research methods and prediction depends on finding patterns in data and this is much aided by its presentation in simple tables. Such tables also aid communication of results.
The basic ideas are very simple. They depend on the principles of how memory works: clear layout of simple tables, rounding of figures, placing figures to be compared in the same column and showing averages.
This work has had a major effect in on the way data are presented in academia, commerce but less in the British public sector. There the layout of the official British Monthly Digest of Statistics under Sir Harry Campion antedated Ehrenberg by many years, but set a pattern in many ways the same.
Read more about this topic: Andrew S. C. Ehrenberg
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