jump-start-book, last major update 2025-09-10

Preface

While this book is in progress, I will use the section of the preface to track my activity (or lack of activity). When the book is complete, the first section drops and I revert to a normal preface.

On 2026-05-22, I started work on Chapter 10 (Descriptive analysis). This is going to be a difficult chapter because easy concepts are the hardest to explain. It also will require changing the SPSS examples into R (and possibly Python). I now am back to a bit more than 27 thousand words.

On 2026-05-21, I finished up Chapter 6 (Pilot studies) and most of Chapter 17 (Focus groups). I also cleaned out some extraneous text. The latter reduced my word count to about 26 thousand, but that’s okay. I feel like I’m getting closer to my target.

On 2026-05-20, I got a pretty good start on Chapter 6 (Pilot studies) and added about 1,300 words. I now have almost 28 thousand words.

On 2026-03-13, I added material to Chapters 8 (Ethical approval) and 16 (Systematic overview). I now have about 26 thousand words.

On 2025-12-28, I wrapped up the “fly in the ointment” section of Chapter 18. It was only about 150 words, but I feel that chapter is reasonably complete.

On 2025-12-15, I continued work on Chapter 18 (How to write a literature review). I have the first three sections laid out nicely, but I still have to talk about the “fly in the ointment” (too many/too few references). The count for the entire book is up to 22 thousand words.

On 2025-12-12, I started work on Chapter 18 (How to write a literature review). This is going to be one of the hardest chapters to write–partly because the topic is so diffuse and partly because there is so much to summarize. I got a nice introduction, revised some of the section headings and got a bit of material in the first and second section headings. I now have 21 thousand words.

On 2025-10-10, I continued work on Chapter 9. I have a pretty complete narrative for section 9.1. I now have about 14 thousand words total, with four relatively complete chapters and four partially completed chapters.

On 2025-10-03, I started work on Chapter 9, Setting up a data entry process. I added ten internal and five external references and a few introductory paragraphs. I now have about 13 thousand words total, with four relatively complete chapters and now four partially completed chapters.

On 2025-09-10, I standardized the bibliographies at the end of each chapter.

On 2025-09-05, I moved text that was wrongly placed in chapter 20 back in the correct chapter (19). I started work on chapter 21, but there is a lot left to be written. I began organizing my bibliography better. I now have about 11 thousand words total, with four relatively complete chapters and now three partially completed chapters.

On 2025-08-29, I completed a pretty good draft of chapter 19, writing a methods section. This adds to three other chapters that we already in good form (chapters 1, 5, and 11). There is also a very little bit written for chapters 2 and 3. The total word count is just around 10 thousand, which is a jump from 7 thousand that the book had been stuck at for many months.

Chapters that are a relatively complete first draft

• Chapter 1. Introduction
• Chapter 5. Selecting your sample size
• Chapter 6. Developing your pilot study
• Chapter 16. Running a systematic overview
• Chapter 18. Writing a literature review
• Chapter 19. Writing a methods section
• Chapter 21. Writing a discussion section

The real preface starts here

This book was a long time coming. I had just finished a book Statistical Evidence in Medical Trials in 2006, and had a nice idea for a second book (this one that you are holding right now). It was more or less written, spread across a few dozen web pages that I had written over the past eight years. Surely, it would drop right into my lap.

Well, it was just like the John Lennon lyric in “Beautiful Boy” about how life is what happens while you’re making other plans. Actually, that makes it sound like I had a bunch of unexpected (and maybe tragic) things happed over the past couple of decades. It is actually simpler than that. There’s a computer term, thrashing, that refers to a multi-tasking computer that spends more time switching from task to task than in getting any of the tasks done. That’s the verb that best describes my life. I’m thrashing.

Every year I’d show up at the Joint Statistics Meeting and look for the Cambridge University Press booth. I’d say hello, usually to Lauren Cowles, sometimes to another representative. This is the year, I’d tell them, that I’ll get the book written. I know exactly what I need to do. And every year, I’d write a lot less than I intended to. Too much thrashing.

I turned a corner (slowly) in 2023 when I converted my thin writings into a book project in Quarto. I really love Quarto and if you have been using RMarkdown for a while, you should really switch. It’s an easy transition, and everything is so much more intuitive under Quarto.

When I really do complete the book, I will add:

So I’m finally done. It was a long time coming, but it’s here. Read on!