Tue Apr 30 19:50:02 1996

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Date: Tue, 30 Apr 96 16:46:28 PDT
From: broman@Np.nosc.mil (Vincent Broman)
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In-Reply-To:  (waltzmn@skypoint.com)
Subject: Sampling and Vulgate
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waltzmn@skypoint.com said:
> I was doing what I could to improve on the heavily
> biased readings of UBS. But if a sample is large enough, it matters
> less.
> 
> It's also important to remember the difference between RELATIVE and
> ABSOLUTE statistics. Changing our sample will change the actual
> RATE of agreement between, say, vg and E (the absolute statistic).
> It is far less likely to change the amount of difference between vg
> and E as opposed to vg and B (the relative statistic).

If your sampling method is biased, increasing the sample size won't help,
the larger sample will still be biased, it just has a smaller variance.

The RELATIVE statistics are =exactly= what gets botched up
by bias in your sampling.  What you need is a sampling method
that you can convince your readers is totally independent of
what you're trying to measure.
And you would have a hard time convincing me that the selection
of variants in the UBS3 apparatus is =independent= of the attestation
by texttypes.


Vincent Broman             Email: broman@nosc.mil                    =   o     
2224 33d St.               Phone: +1 619 284 3775                  =  _ /- _   
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