Book Reviews

A Recipe for Success Using SAS® University Edition: How to Plan Your First Analytics Project
978-1-62960-193-9


"As an introductory text on both SAS University Edition and analytics, A Recipe for Success Using SAS University Edition is a pleasure to read. Although not a SAS beginner myself, I found this book provided an excellent refresh to the basics of SAS and analytics, and the book reminded me of some things I have forgotten along the way!

"Information and topics are represented in a visual way throughout the book, which helps in remembering key topics, and ensures you can return to the subject when the need arises.

"In writing this text using the increasingly popular SAS University Edition, Sharon has made this book very accessible to all newcomers to SAS, or people interested in learning analytics.

"Overall, if you are new to SAS or analytics this book makes an excellent first read."

David Moors
Whitehound Limited


"Sharon Jones' book A Recipe for Success Using SAS® University Edition ties two of my favorite things–food and SAS–into a compact book full of easy–to–read analogies that teach essential SAS skills. From planning your analytical project to building a report, Jones' method of showcasing these critical steps allows both new and experienced SAS users to get the most out of their day.

"New users should read this book before going too far into learning SAS–the tips and tricks in this book will make learning SAS significantly easier. Experienced users will learn new ways to manage their projects and therefore make them more efficient SAS programmers.

"This book, in conjunction with Ron Cody's An Introduction to SAS® University Edition, will enable completely inexperienced SAS programmers to be up and running in no time, with very little frustration and a whole lot of fun."

Christopher Battiston
Wait Times Coordinator
Women's College Hospital


"Sharon Jones has taken a novel approach to explaining how to use statistical programming tools to analyze a question about data. She has compared following a recipe for cooking something to the steps needed to analyze a question about data.

"The book has two basic parts, first explaining the data and the tools and second applying the tools to analyze the data in case studies. As a SAS programmer for over thirty years, my programming expertise was creating the data sets. I rarely used SAS procedures to analyze the data.

"I found this book easy to read and simple to understand. The basic explanations of the statistical terms, in simple words, made the task definitions more meaningful and easy to understand. The case studies provided examples of how to approach the analysis of questions about data."

William E. Benjamin, Jr.