Meaning, purpose and workflow

Statistics concerns collecting, organising, presenting, analysing and interpreting data to answer a question. In the plural sense, statistics are numerical summaries; in the singular sense, statistics is the discipline and its methods. Start with a purpose, define the population and variables, collect suitable data, check quality, summarise, then interpret in context. The source emphasises aggregates, multiple causes, numerical expression, systematic collection, a predetermined purpose and comparability. These describe the traditional numerical conception; modern statistics also analyses categorical observations.