The book is intended to help analytical chemists feel comfortable with the commonly used statistical operations and make effective use of the results. The emphasis is on computer-based methods that are applied in relation to measurement and the quality of the resulting data. The book is intended for analytical chemists working in industry but is at the level required for students taking first degrees or an MSc in analytical chemistry.

The book is divided into quite short sections, each dealing with a single topic. The sections are as far as possible self-contained, but are extensively cross-referenced. The book can therefore be used either systematically by reading the sections sequentially, or as a quick reference by going directly to the topic of interest. Every statistical method and application covered has at least one example where the results are analysed in detail. This enables readers to emulate this analysis on their own examples. All of the datasets used in examples are available for download, so that readers can compare their own output with that of the book and thus verify that they are entering data correctly into the statistical package that they happen to use.