Editing Summary statistics (section)

{{short description|Type of statistics}}
[[File:Michelsonmorley-boxplot.svg|thumb|[[Box plot]] of the [[Michelson–Morley experiment]], showing several summary statistics.]]

In [[descriptive statistics]], '''summary statistics''' are used to summarize a set of [[observation]]s, in order to communicate the largest amount of information as simply as possible. Statisticians commonly try to describe the observations in
* a measure of location, or [[central tendency]], such as the [[arithmetic mean]]
* a measure of [[statistical dispersion]] like the [[standard deviation|standard mean absolute deviation]]
* a measure of the shape of the distribution like [[skewness]] or [[kurtosis]]
* if more than one variable is measured, a measure of [[correlation and dependence|statistical dependence]] such as a [[Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient|correlation coefficient]]

A common collection of [[order statistics]] used as summary statistics are the [[five-number summary]], sometimes extended to a [[seven-number summary]], and the associated [[box plot]].

Entries in an [[analysis of variance]] table can also be regarded as summary statistics.{{r|Upton|p=378}}