Put aside your fears and be wrong already!

First of all, if your research progress is slowed by fear of statistics, your are certainly not alone. Being afraid to "mess-up" your stats, and thus your project, is a common lament. But I'm here to tell you that your project is not that fragile! Once your data is collected, entered, cleaned, and ready for analysis, it is time for excitement, not concern! The golden rule here is: BACK UP. I'll say it again: BACK UP. In case I haven't been clear so far BACK UP! By this I mean back up your data. Make double, triple, and quadruple copies of your dataset and KEEP THEM IN DIFFERENT PLACES (e.g. on a server, on an external hard drive, on a flash drive...etc). It doesn't do much good to keep back up copies in the same place as your original, because if something goes wrong where your data is located, the back up copies are likely toast too!

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Trade Your Stats "Truths" for Stats Arguments...

The two most common questions that I receive about statistical analyses, no matter what kind or purpose, is: "Am I doing it right?" or "Am I allowed to...(fill-in a variation of a common analysis here)?" My response to these questions is usually: "Sure, you can do whatever you want, but what will it mean if you do?" I've said for a few years now that I don't see statistics as being about find truths, but instead I see it as being about building arguments. The critical things is that you understand the impact of your statistical decisions.

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Data Transformations: statistical voodoo or truth serum for your data?

Anyone that has taken a statistics class has probably learned about transforming data, at one time or another (although you may be in denial about it). In short, you may want to transform your data if you need to perform a parametric analysis, but the inherent assumptions are violated in your dataset.

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