C79 - Homework 5
Due: Thursday, February 28 in class at 2:10pm.
Late homeworks (i.e. submitted after 2:10pm) will NOT be accepted.


Read the following news article:
New York Times, "Survey Finds That Fish Are Often Not
What Label Says" (21 Feb 2013):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/us/survey-finds-that-fish-are-often-not-what-label-says.html

Q1. Write a short summary of this article.  The summary should be no
more than three sentences long.

Q2. Search the internet to find the original study from which the news
article obtained its information, and read or skim the study.  List the
URL of the study in your answer.  If no study is available, search the
internet for more information on the subject of the article, and include
in your answer to Q2 the URL of the resources you read.

Q3. Do you think the news article accurately reflected the findings
of the study and did a reasonable job of explaining the limitations or
implications of the study?  Say "yes" or "no", and briefly explain why
in a sentence.

Q4. Pick one statistic from the news article that stood out to you as
the most surprising, dubious, or misleading.  In your answer, identify
the statistic, and describe how the article used the statistic in its
argument.  The description should be no more than three sentences.

Q5. Using the thinking and tools that you have gained from this class
(lecture, How to Lie With Statistics, etc.), comment on the article's
portrayal of the statistic you selected in Q4, based on your understanding
of the study's findings or the additional information that you found.
Limit your response to three sentences or less.


Next, read the following news article:
CBS New York, "Stringer: New York City On Track For Twice
As Many Subway Deaths This Year" (23 January 2013):
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/01/23/stringer-new-york-on-track-for-twice-as-many-subway-deaths-this-year/

Q6-10: repeat Q1-Q5, for this news article.


Note: You can access the full text of many original studies online using
the university's network.  If you are off-campus, you can configure your
browser to connect to these electronic resources.  See the library's
website for more information: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/Help/proxy.html