We had 15 submissions for the May caption contest that featured a cartoon showing people in line to take part in a taste testing experiment with three of them being conservatively dressed and three being wildly dressed.
The winning caption for the cartoon was “As my stats professor repeatedly told us: “Better to stratify and not need it, than to not stratify and need it,” written by Jim Alloway of EMSQ Associates. The caption was chosen for it’s ability to begin a discussion about the value of stratification in reducing the variability of population estimates (and the difficulty in doing so when the population weights are unknown).
Two honorable mentions were judged to be very close competitors including: “Participants may vary more than the products!,” written by Larry Lesser from University of Texas at El Paso; and “To "B" or To "A" ... that is the question. Whether it is better to randomize or systematize our assignments,” written by John Bailer from Miami University.