"Some distributions [...] are symmetrical about their central value. Other distributions have marked asymmetry and are said to be skew. Skew distributions are divided into two types. If the 'tail' of the distribution reaches out into the larger values of the variate, the distribution is said to show positive skewness; if the tail extends towards the smaller values of the variate, the distribution is called negatively skew." (Michael J Moroney, "Facts from Figures", 1951)
"Logging size transforms the original skewed distribution into a more symmetrical one by pulling in the long right tail of the distribution toward the mean. The short left tail is, in addition, stretched. The shift toward symmetrical distribution produced by the log transform is not, of course, merely for convenience. Symmetrical distributions, especially those that resemble the normal distribution, fulfill statistical assumptions that form the basis of statistical significance testing in the regression model." (Edward R Tufte, "Data Analysis for Politics and Policy", 1974)
"Logging skewed variables also helps to reveal the patterns in the data. […] the rescaling of the variables by taking logarithms reduces the nonlinearity in the relationship and removes much of the clutter resulting from the skewed distributions on both variables; in short, the transformation helps clarify the relationship between the two variables. It also […] leads to a theoretically meaningful regression coefficient." (Edward R Tufte, "Data Analysis for Politics and Policy", 1974)
"The logarithmic transformation serves several purposes: (1) The resulting regression coefficients sometimes have a more useful theoretical interpretation compared to a regression based on unlogged variables. (2) Badly skewed distributions - in which many of the observations are clustered together combined with a few outlying values on the scale of measurement - are transformed by taking the logarithm of the measurements so that the clustered values are spread out and the large values pulled in more toward the middle of the distribution. (3) Some of the assumptions underlying the regression model and the associated significance tests are better met when the logarithm of the measured variables is taken." (Edward R Tufte, "Data Analysis for Politics and Policy", 1974)
"It is common for positive data to be skewed to the right: some values bunch together at the low end of the scale and others trail off to the high end with increasing gaps between the values as they get higher. Such data can cause severe resolution problems on graphs, and the common remedy is to take logarithms. Indeed, it is the frequent success of this remedy that partly accounts for the large use of logarithms in graphical data display." (William S Cleveland, "The Elements of Graphing Data", 1985)
"Visually, skewed sample distributions have one 'longer' and one 'shorter' tail. More general terms are 'heavier' and 'lighter' tails. Tail weight reflects not only distance from the center (tail length) but also the frequency of cases at that distance (tail depth, in a histogram). Tail weight corresponds to actual weight if the sample histogram were cut out of wood and balanced like a seesaw on its median (see next section). A positively skewed distribution is heavier to the right of the median; negative skew implies the opposite." (Lawrence C Hamilton, "Regression with Graphics: A second course in applied statistics", 1991)
"Skewness is a measure of symmetry. For example, it's zero for the bell-shaped normal curve, which is perfectly symmetric about its mean. Kurtosis is a measure of the peakedness, or fat-tailedness, of a distribution. Thus, it measures the likelihood of extreme values." (John L Casti, "Reality Rules: Picturing the world in mathematics", 1992)
"Data that are skewed toward large values occur commonly. Any set of positive measurements is a candidate. Nature just works like that. In fact, if data consisting of positive numbers range over several powers of ten, it is almost a guarantee that they will be skewed. Skewness creates many problems. There are visualization problems. A large fraction of the data are squashed into small regions of graphs, and visual assessment of the data degrades. There are characterization problems. Skewed distributions tend to be more complicated than symmetric ones; for example, there is no unique notion of location and the median and mean measure different aspects of the distribution. There are problems in carrying out probabilistic methods. The distribution of skewed data is not well approximated by the normal, so the many probabilistic methods based on an assumption of a normal distribution cannot be applied." (William S Cleveland, "Visualizing Data", 1993)
"The logarithm is one of many transformations that we can apply to univariate measurements. The square root is another. Transformation is a critical tool for visualization or for any other mode of data analysis because it can substantially simplify the structure of a set of data. For example, transformation can remove skewness toward large values, and it can remove monotone increasing spread. And often, it is the logarithm that achieves this removal." (William S Cleveland, "Visualizing Data", 1993)
"When the distributions of two or more groups of univariate data are skewed, it is common to have the spread increase monotonically with location. This behavior is monotone spread. Strictly speaking, monotone spread includes the case where the spread decreases monotonically with location, but such a decrease is much less common for raw data. Monotone spread, as with skewness, adds to the difficulty of data analysis. For example, it means that we cannot fit just location estimates to produce homogeneous residuals; we must fit spread estimates as well. Furthermore, the distributions cannot be compared by a number of standard methods of probabilistic inference that are based on an assumption of equal spreads; the standard t-test is one example. Fortunately, remedies for skewness can cure monotone spread as well." (William S Cleveland, "Visualizing Data", 1993)
"Use a logarithmic scale when it is important to under- stand percent change or multiplicative factors. […] Showing data on a logarithmic scale can cure skewness toward large values." (Naomi B Robbins, "Creating More effective Graphs", 2005)
"Before calculating a confidence interval for a mean, first check that one of the situations just described holds. To determine whether the data are bell-shaped or skewed, and to check for outliers, plot the data using a histogram, dotplot, or stemplot. A boxplot can reveal outliers and will sometimes reveal skewness, but it cannot be used to determine the shape otherwise. The sample mean and median can also be compared to each other. Differences between the mean and the median usually occur if the data are skewed - that is, are much more spread out in one direction than in the other." (Jessica M Utts & Robert F Heckard, "Mind on Statistics", 2007)
"Symmetry and skewness can be judged, but boxplots are not entirely useful for judging shape. It is not possible to use a boxplot to judge whether or not a dataset is bell-shaped, nor is it possible to judge whether or not a dataset may be bimodal." (Jessica M Utts & Robert F Heckard, "Mind on Statistics", 2007)
"Given the important role that correlation plays in structural equation modeling, we need to understand the factors that affect establishing relationships among multivariable data points. The key factors are the level of measurement, restriction of range in data values (variability, skewness, kurtosis), missing data, nonlinearity, outliers, correction for attenuation, and issues related to sampling variation, confidence intervals, effect size, significance, sample size, and power." (Randall E Schumacker & Richard G Lomax, "A Beginner’s Guide to Structural Equation Modeling" 3rd Ed., 2010)
"While the information is of the utmost importance when it comes to soundness, what is done with the information - essentially, how it is designed - is also important. With this in mind, there are two things to consider: format and design quality. If an inappropriate format is used, the outcome will be inferior. Similarly, if the design misrepresents or skews the information deliberately or due to user error, or if the design is inappropriate given the subject matter, it cannot be considered high quality, no matter how aesthetically appealing it appears at first glance." (Jason Lankow et al, "Infographics: The power of visual storytelling", 2012)
"A histogram represents the frequency distribution of the data. Histograms are similar to bar charts but group numbers into ranges. Also, a histogram lets you show the frequency distribution of continuous data. This helps in analyzing the distribution (for example, normal or Gaussian), any outliers present in the data, and skewness." (Umesh R Hodeghatta & Umesha Nayak, "Business Analytics Using R: A Practical Approach", 2017)
"New information is constantly flowing in, and your brain is constantly integrating it into this statistical distribution that creates your next perception (so in this sense 'reality' is just the product of your brain’s ever-evolving database of consequence). As such, your perception is subject to a statistical phenomenon known in probability theory as kurtosis. Kurtosis in essence means that things tend to become increasingly steep in their distribution [...] that is, skewed in one direction. This applies to ways of seeing everything from current events to ourselves as we lean 'skewedly' toward one interpretation, positive or negative. Things that are highly kurtotic, or skewed, are hard to shift away from. This is another way of saying that seeing differently isn’t just conceptually difficult - it’s statistically difficult." (Beau Lotto, "Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently", 2017)
"Many statistical procedures perform more effectively on
data that are normally distributed, or at least are symmetric and not
excessively kurtotic (fat-tailed), and where the mean and variance are
approximately constant. Observed time series frequently require some form of
transformation before they exhibit these distributional properties, for in
their 'raw' form they are often asymmetric." (Terence C Mills, "Applied Time
Series Analysis: A practical guide to modeling and forecasting", 2019)
"With skewed data, quantiles will reflect the skew, while adding standard deviations assumes symmetry in the distribution and can be misleading." (Robert Grant, "Data Visualization: Charts, Maps and Interactive Graphics", 2019)
"Skewed data means data that is shifted in one direction or the other. Skewness can cause machine learning models to underperform. Many machine learning models assume normally distributed data or data structures to follow the Gaussian structure. Any deviation from the assumed Gaussian structure, which is the popular bell curve, can affect model performance. A very effective area where we can apply feature engineering is by looking at the skewness of data and then correcting the skewness through normalization of the data." (Anthony So et al, "The Data Science Workshop" 2nd Ed., 2020)
"Adjusting scale is an important practice in data visualization. While the log transform is versatile, it doesn’t handle all situations where skew or curvature occurs. For example, at times the values are all roughly the same order of magnitude and the log transformation has little impact. Another transformation to consider is the square root transformation, which is often useful for count data." (Sam Lau et al, "Learning Data Science: Data Wrangling, Exploration, Visualization, and Modeling with Python", 2023)
