Score...
Okay, how did we do that? This page explains the method I used to calculate the scores of the books. I'll try to use as few statistical buzz-words as possible, but there will be some math involved. My apologies.
Process...
- Reviewers were asked to send in nominations. There were 126 books, series, trilogies, and comic series nominated.
- Reviewers received the complete nomination list and rated each book from -5 (worst) to 5 (best). This is 11 numbers, with 0 as the average. There were 8 reviewers. Each reviewer only voted for books they had read (I hope).
- Due to the quality of books nominated, or reviewer bias, the average rating was not 0. In fact, the average fluctuated from about 1.75 to 4.25, depending on the reviewer. To refrain from penalizing books liked by reviewers who prefered lower scores, and to prevent score inflation, I took the average and standard deviation for each reviewer. Standard deviation is a measure of how spread out the scores were- a higher standard deviation means a person used more of the scale and their scores fluctuated more widely.
- Here's the math part: Using Microsoft Excel (you think I could do this by hand? No way!), I took a single reviewer's scores and subtracted that reviewer's average from all of them. This gave me positive and negative scores in relation to the average score that reviewer gave, rather than in relation to 0. This compensated for the difference between reviewer averages that varied from 1.75 and 4.25, for example.
- Next I had to fix the problem where some reviewers used the whole scale while others only used a tiny part of it. I took the new scores and divided by the standard deviation for each reviewer. If the reviewer's average was 3 and her standard deviation was 1, a book that got a score of 4 from her would now have a score of 1, and a book that received a 2 would now have a -1.
- I averaged these new scores. To make them easier to read, I multiplied them all times 100. Viola, the scores. (yes, that's "Viola", like the instrument)
- I'm still not sure what to do about the books with only 1 reviewer. It seems unfair to give a book a score based on one person's perceptions. The only solution I have right now is to get more reviewers, or to foist off nominated books on more current reviewers. 8 is such a very small number, and not a single book had been read by all 8 people. Oh well. It's close enough for now.
Cute Little Facts...
(or, I have too much time on my hands)
- No book had been read by all the reviewers. Three books, the "Narnia" series, Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Jurrasic Park (which didn't make the cut) had been read by 7 reviewers. 8 books had been read by 6 reviewers.
- While only 5 reviewers turned in nomination lists, 8 reviewers voted. 10 books were nominated during the voting process- mostly in voting lists. A little late, ne? They'll get in next time.
- 12 of the books (or series) on this list have received either the Hugo, the Nebula, or the Newbery. 3 books which received one of these awards failed to make the cut. Tough crowd, ne?
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Last Updated: June 10, 1999
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