--- Richard Ohrvall <[email protected]> wrote:
> Regarding Maartens comment, well I disagree, I often have weights
> calibrated to known population totals (eg. from a census). It
> therefore makes sense to have the exact population total in tables
> instead of a scientific notation with rounded figures. Of course
> these figures are usually a bit uncertain, but they are often treated
> as certain (eg. the population in the Netherlands at a certain date)
> and consistency in this aspect can help to avoid confusion.
Sometimes we have to conform to the prevailing practice in our
discipline, but that does not mean we have to forget that that practice
is actually bad practice. Reporting numbers we know are nothing more
than random noice seems like bad practice to me.
-- Maarten
-----------------------------------------
Maarten L. Buis
Department of Social Research Methodology
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Boelelaan 1081
1081 HV Amsterdam
The Netherlands
visiting address:
Buitenveldertselaan 3 (Metropolitan), room Z434
+31 20 5986715
http://home.fsw.vu.nl/m.buis/
-----------------------------------------
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