The Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education is happy to
announce our 78th Cartoon Caption Contest! Each month a cartoon, drawn by British
cartoonist John Landers, is posted for you and your students to suggest statistical
captions (cartoons are posted at the beginning of the month and submissions are due at the
end of the month). The caption contest is offered as a fun way to get your students
thinking independently about statistical concepts.
The next cartoon and the entry rules for the contest ending November 30 are at
https://www.causeweb.org/cause/caption-contest/november/2022/submissions
The best submission will be posted on CAUSEweb and the winner(s) will receive their choice
of a coffee mug or t-shirt imprinted with the final cartoon.
Enjoy.
[A picture containing text Description automatically generated]
October Results:
The October caption contest cartoon is shown here. The judges found the winning caption to
be “Unfortunately the Tailor's approximation didn't lead to a goodness of
fit," written by Eric Vance, from University of Colorado in Boulder. Eric’s clever
pun can be a vehicle to discuss the value of approximations in statistical inference and
the need to check the fit of models. An honorable mention this month goes to Stephen
Walsh, a student at Virginia Tech for his caption, “Significant bias is never in style.”
Stephen’s caption can help in teaching about avoiding highly biased inference but at the
same time being open to some bias if it helps to improve reliability. A second honorable
mention goes to Louis Rocconi from University of Tennessee for the caption “Now that’s
what I call measurement error!” as vehicle to discuss that topic.
Thanks to everyone who submitted a caption and congratulations to our winners!