--- Song wrote:
> I need to use log transfomation for both my dependent variable
> and independent variables.
I always get rebellious as soon as someone says the he or
she
"must" or "needs to" use some technique or do some
transformation. Statistics
does not force you do anything. The
only thing you must do is make sense.
Statistics books are full
of rules of thumb and tips that will often help
making sensible
decision. It these "rules" that people often mean
when they say
that they "must" do something. I have two problems with
that:
1) You are the only one who is responsible for your decisions.
You are hiding
from that responsibility by saying that you "must"
do something (at least as long as you do not tell why this is the
case).
2) Such rules help in general but often do not apply to your
specific research
project. The only one who can see that is you.
This is a general rant, and I hope you do not take this personally.
It is just
that this issue is bothering me for some time, and you
just made this remark at
a time that I had time to write it up.
Also, I am a non-native speaker, so it
may very well be that I read
too much in the word need in this context
-- 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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