Publication Details

Title	Better sampling, more analyses, bigger laboratories?
Authors	Hutchinson TP
Year	2005
Type	Journal Article
Abstract	I'm a statistician. I don't know a mass spectrometer from a resonating horoscope. But it seems to me that: Many practitioners and researchers do not have an optimal balance between the various stages of their data collection; A better balance would involve them making more use of the fancy bits of kit back in the laboratory; and This should be of great interest to those who sell laboratory services or the fancy bits of kit. The key point is that the user typically wants (or should want) some idea of the accuracy of the results -the accuracy of the sample in representing the relevant population, that is, not merely the accuracy of the fancy bits of kit themselves. I am not making the familiar plea that an accurate estimate of a mean requires a large sample size. That's often true and important, but it's not my point. Rather, I am saying that a larger sample size will enable certain components of variability to be estimated that are vital for answering certain questions.
Journal Title	NATA News
Journal Volume (Issue)	June 2005(116)
Page Range	12-13
Page Count	2

Reference

Hutchinson TP (2005). Better sampling, more analyses, bigger laboratories?. NATA News, June 2005(116), 12-13.