In statistics, the concept of the shape of the distribution refers to the shape of a probability distribution and it most often arises in questions of finding an appropriate distribution to use to model the statistical properties of a population, given a sample from that population. The shape of a distribution may be considered either descriptively, using terms such as "J-shaped", or numerically, using quantitative measures such as skewness and kurtosis.
Considerations of the shape of a distribution arise in statistical data analysis, where simple quantitative descriptive statistics and plotting techniques such as histograms can lead on to the selection of a particular family of distributions for modelling purposes.
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—Joáo Cabral De Melo Neto (b. 1920)
“We cannot and must not get rid of nor deny our characteristics. But we can give them shape and direction.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
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—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)