76. Statistics journals. When a professional statistician has information to share with colleagues, he or she will submit an article to one of several Statistics journals for publication.

This can be a lengthy process; typically, the article must be circulated for “peer review” and perhaps edited before being accepted for publication. Then the article must wait in line with other articles before actually appearing in print. In the Winter 1998 issue of Chance magazine, Eric Bradlow and Howard Wainer reported on this delay for several journals between 1990 and 1994. For 288 articles published in The American Statistician, the mean length of time between initial submission and publication was 21 months, with a standard deviation of 8 months. For 209 Applied Statistics articles, the mean time to publication was 31 months, with a standard deviation of 12 months. Create and interpret a 90% confidence interval for the difference in mean delay, and comment on the assumptions that underlie your analysis.