Larry Lesser of The University of Texas at El Paso repurposed Madonna’s signature song (and #2 hit), “Material Girl,” written by Peter Brown and Robert Rans, to teach the empirical rule.
Empirical Rule
lyric © 2017 Lawrence M. Lesser
Data values normally are
no more far away
Than 3 standard deviations
from the mean displayed.
And within 2 deviations, 19 of 20 lie, that’s right!
And within 1 deviation, 2/3 are confined,
CHORUS: ‘Cause we are living in an empirical world
and I need an empirical tool.
You know that we are living in an empirical world
and I use the empirical rule!
If I think a population
looks bell curve to me,
The rule helps tag outliers like a
z-score more than 3.
But if the population may not
take the normal shape (no way!),
Frequencies that you expect can
help you ascertain.
(Repeat Chorus)
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