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Statistics in Sociology


            Statistics are very important when studying sociology. With statistics, sociologists are able to analyze situations, make predications on future situations, and prove and present their findings in an easy manner. Statistics give people an idea in their head that includes specifics, like where and how much, instead of just relative terms. For example, stating "smoking has been reduced among middle school smokers by 54%" is much more effective than stating "smoking has been reduced a lot among middle school smokers". Using numbers makes a more valid point. However, another important issue when it comes to statistics is questioning where those numbers came from. Skeptics can always ask how do you know or how did you get that information. By stating a legitimate source, your statistics will be much more believable. When hearing debates or reading articles that include statistics it is always important to find the validity of the numbers. It is very easy to deceit people using statistics. It's not even necessary to lie to be deceiving, but rather just leave out a few numbers that may go against your point. Returning to the example, if someone says that their program has "reduced smoking among middle school students by 54%" but leaves out the fact that "smoking among high school students has increased by 15%", it still makes their program sound effective. By only including certain statistics, research may not always be as fair as it seems. When sociologists look at statistics, they must always be sure to question the source and find the whole story behind the numbers.
            


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