The aim of this paper by Dr. Deming is to compare several plans of sampling that often appear to be equal, but which may give widely different degrees of precision when put into use. After describing three plans to estimate a total population, he covers estimates of a ratio, and the effect of blanks in the frame. An appendix gives an illustration of a frame with two units.

This eighteen-page article appeared in Contributions to Applied Statistics. dedicated to Professor Arthur Linder, Edited by Walter Joh. Ziegler, 1976 Birkhauser Verlag, Basel und Stuttgart.

In this paper Dr. Deming aimed to explain some points about statistical design and inference that had not yet found their way into textbooks. Some fifteen years later, these concepts are still not in most textbooks. The article is not about statistical techniques, but is about how to understand the meaning of statistical results. Sections include the purpose of the study (enumerative and analytic), the frame of study and when it is satisfactory, the equal complete coverage, nonsampling errors, three uncertainties that may exist, the meaning of standard error, limitations of statistical inference, and need for operational definitions.

This 16 page article appeared as Chapter 20 in the book The Behavior of Psychiatric Patients, Quantitative Techniques for Evaluation, edited by Burdock, Sudilovsky and Gershon, published in 1982 by Marcel Dekker, Inc., NY.

While a patient, Dr. Deming observed that the administrator of a hospital knows a lot about what happens in the hospital. So does a head nurse. The physicians know much about the hospital that no one else knows. A patient in the hospital sees what no one else sees. All these different points of view, were they known, might be helpful to the management of a medical care system. A hospital is an important component in a system of medical care, and needs all of these inputs. In this article Dr. Deming points out the need for the view of medical care as a system. He then goes on in his inimitable style to illustrate the point with his (the patient’s) view of one particular hospital experience.

This four page article appeared in the Journal of the Society for Health Systems, Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 1990.

Dr. Deming states that “The purpose of this (paper) is to help people that do research, and people that pay for research, to get more for their money.” He discusses the answers to four questions: (1) Does a figure convey information? (2) What is the aim of good design? (3) Is good statistical work costly? (4) Can you distinguish a probability sample from something else? He then focuses on three types of uncertainty in data, variances between interviewers, and use of the standard error. In conclusion he debunks six fables about surveys.

These ten pages are an address delivered by Dr. Deming to the Market Research Council in New York on the 17th September 1971.

Some Responsibilities of a Statistician (1964)