In “Explaining statistical methods to the terrified & disinterested: A focus on metaphors”, I discuss the usefulness of metaphors for explaining abstract statistical concepts to non-technical readers. This is an approach taken in my new SAS Press book, Business Statistics Made Easy in SAS®, since many readers of this level
In a previous blog I suggested that many readers in many applied areas are reading statistics texts under duress for a course or project, and are in truth somewhere between disinterested and terrified. In my new SAS Press book Business Statistics Made Easy in SAS® I make use of various
What do you think is the most important new feature in SAS/STAT? Well it depends! In this video, SAS developers talk about their new work and which customers will be excited about it and why. Healthcare professionals may lean toward the new rare events control charts in QC, which allows
Whether your New Year’s resolution is to get SAS certified or to become a more advanced SAS programmer, we’ve got you covered with these upcoming SAS Press books, many of which will be making their bookshelf debut at SAS® Global Forum 2016 in fabulous Las Vegas! The SAS® Programmer’s PROC
Continuing your education can be daunting. Just thinking about all of that time that could be spent relaxing and you have to carve out two hours to study…really! Trust me when I say, I feel your pain. BUT, you will reap the rewards ten-fold, I promise. Check out these top
One of the frustrating outcomes of the data import process is when a variable that you need to be numeric is imported as character. This often happens because the column of data contains non-numeric data, for example, where blanks in a database are exported as “NULL” instead of a true
Many readers in applied areas (business, health, psychology & sociology, education, and several others) are reading statistics texts under duress for a course or project, and are in truth somewhere between disinterested and terrified. In my new SAS Press book Business Statistics Made Easy in SAS® I knew that I
This blog is co-authored by Susan J. Slaughter and Lora D. Delwiche. SAS Press is now 25 years old. As impressive as that is, a bigger milestone for us personally is that The Little SAS® Book is now 20 years old! We had no idea back then that we would still
As I visit my clients, it sometimes surprises me when they avoid the use of PROC REPORT. “It’s too different”. Even those that do use it, often fail to take advantage of the procedure’s power by ignoring the compute block. Yes this procedure is different from any other. Yes using
SAS Press is now 25 years old! To commemorate this milestone, I decided to research a question that has fascinated me for years: Who was the first person outside of SAS Institute to write a book about SAS? I first heard about this controversy at the Western Users of SAS
Don’t just think like a data scientist. Be one! You know analytical talent is in high demand. Differentiate yourself by earning a newly launched certification in big data and data science from SAS. The SAS Academy for Data Science can help you sharpen your skills and validate your expertise – for
You’ve read their books. You’ve probably even met them at conferences. But now, we’re revealing another side of our beloved SAS authors in this list of fun facts. Prepare to be surprised. Hint – one of the authors swims with sharks. Tricia Aanderud Tricia has over 100 jokes memorized -
This guest blog post comes from Dr. David Dickey, one of our original SAS Press authors. Hope you enjoy! In the late 1970s, shortly after SAS was founded, I was approached by Herbert Kirk and John Brocklebank from SAS to put together a course on time series. This was reasonably
For students to become capable data analysts, they need experience that they can take with them into the real world after graduation. By far the most critical skill for their toolkit is learning to work with real-life data. Therefore, it is important from a teaching standpoint that instructors provide students
As we continue our celebration of 25 years of SAS Press, I thought I’d share 25 reasons why you should write a book with us and become a SAS Press author. It’s not all work; we also have fun through this enriching journey from idea to print! Here’s our top
At California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo the Statistics Department offers two courses on preparation for the Base SAS Certification and Advanced SAS Certification exams, respectively. Each of these courses is 10 weeks long and the topics covered follow the content offered in the certification guides offered by SAS.
Ask any user how they first learned SAS and there’s a good chance they’ll cite The Little SAS Book as a resource they used to get started. Authors Lora Delwiche, Susan Slaughter, and Rebecca Ottesen have written a new book that promises to be just as helpful to new SAS
I think everyone can agree that being able to debug programs is an important skill for SAS programmers. That’s why Susan Slaughter and I devoted a whole chapter to it in The Little SAS® Book. I don’t know about you, but I think figuring out what’s wrong with my program
Our new book, Exercises and Projects for The Little SAS® Book Fifth Edition, includes a variety of exercises to help people learn SAS programming. Rebecca Ottesen, Lora Delwiche and I designed this book so that it can be used either in a classroom setting or by individual readers working alone.
This SAS author tip is from Robert Virgile, author of “SAS Macro Language Magic: Discovering Advanced Techniques”. It actually came about when a reader posted a comment on one of Virgile’s blogs. Thank you to that reader for their comment! Technically, %INCLUDE is not part of macro language. Yes, it
Bill Benjamin’s bestseller, Exchanging Data between SAS and Microsoft Excel: Tips and Techniques to Transfer and Manage Data More Efficiently, was pipped at the post as he narrowly missed the top spot to Implementing CDISC Using SAS: An End-to-End Guide, at last month’s PharmaSUG 2015 meeting in Orlando -- by one
The final figures are in! This year there was a fierce battle for the top spot of the SAS Global Forum 2015 books bestseller list. In a nail biting finish, newcomer, Exchanging Data between SAS and Microsoft Excel: Tips and Techniques to Transfer and Manage Data More Efficiently, beat off
What prompted me to find a co-author and write a new edition of my original book on PROC TABULATE? It’s those inventive developers at SAS. They keep adding new features to make the product even better. There are too many new features and techniques in the book to name, but these are
This SAS tip is from Robert Virgile and his book “SAS Macro Language Magic: Discovering Advanced Techniques”. We hope you find this tip useful. You can also read an excerpt from Virgile’s book. When CALL SYMPUT creates a new macro variable, it places that variable in “the closest non-empty symbol
Many of our authors often ask us where they can find real data that they can use without copyright or other confidentiality issues. Instructors too are always on the look-out for real-life data. Well, thanks to a new initiative supported by SAS, you can now access data from more than
Many colleagues and customers at SAS Global Forum ask me, why I write books beside having a full-time job as SAS consultant and being lecturer at universities. Valid question. SUSTAINABILITY. I have been working in so many analysis projects in different domains and industries. Some of them were longer, others were
I’m headed to Orlando, May 17- 20, for the annual PharmaSUG conference. PharmaSUG is the Pharmaceutical Industry SAS Users Group, consisting of professionals worldwide in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries who use SAS software in their work. I will be at the SAS Publications booth in the demo room and
Most SAS programmers have been here. Someone just wants a handful of numbers that they can add to a graph or power point presentation that is due tomorrow. You have the data files, you have a job to summarize it, and you have a dilemma. How do I get my
We had a lot of books at the ENAR 2015 Spring Meeting in Miami last week, but these were the top three bestsellers. Analysis of Observational Healthcare Data using SAS by Douglas E. Faries, Robert L. Obenchain, Josep Maria Haro, and Andrew C. Leon Survival Analysis Using SAS®: A Practical
Are you heading to the ENAR 2015 Spring Meeting in Miami this week? SAS author and Program Chair Mithat Gönen, of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and Associate Chair Brisa Sánchez, of the University of Michigan School of Public Health have created an outstanding scientific program this year. The sessions cover
