“Hit Me with Your Best Plot”

lyrics written February 6, 2007 by Lawrence M. Lesser;

may sing to tune of 1980 Eddie Schwartz’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”(#9 hit for Pat Benatar)

appears on page 22 of the Spring 2011 issue of Teaching Statistics

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9639.2010.00430.x/pdf

 

Well you’re a real tough cookie in statistics class,

Doin’ just average    enough to pass.

That’s OK, just don’t fit a line

‘Til you view the data you’re assigned!

 

CHORUS:  Hit me with your best plot!

Why don’t you hit me with your best plot?

Hit me with your best plot –  graph away!

 

Come on, you know graphs gotta look fair--

Like pictogram areas showin’ their share.

Let zero be where the y-axis starts

And don’t have a graph with unlabeled parts!  (Repeat Chorus)

 

Temperature data   held a clue:

Cold could mean trouble if the Challenger flew--

But they did the launch and an O-ring blew.

Don’t let disaster happen to you!  (Repeat Chorus)

 

I wrote the following new third verse just in time for the

banquet of the 2013 United States Conference on Teaching Statistics:

 

Well Hans Rosling took our long history  

And animated data so we could see

What’s a trend or a special case    

As nations move through time and space!