<h2>How do I interpret this output?</h2>

<p>This kind of question consists of copying and pasting some output from your software and then asking us how to interpret the output. (In really bad cases, the output isn't even formatted to respect line breaks or use of fixed width fonts and thus to echo the layout in your software, so it's essentially unreadable too.) </p>

<p>Why is this often a bad question?</p>

<p><strong>What does "interpret" mean, any way?</strong> </p>

<p><strong>Is it: Tell me what the results mean?</strong> 
Sometimes people want a <em>substantive</em> interpretation and are asking that someone writes a story for them using subject-matter knowledge, factual and theoretical. That is, it's economic data, and you want to know what a (student or beginning) economist should write to satisfy other economists. Or it's psychological or biological data or whatever; only the peer group differs, but it's the same expectation. That's usually a tough call even if experts in your field recognise the variables and could do it, but almost no-one on CV wants to help to write your term paper or project report or to draft your submission to a learned journal. We're happy to advise on specific, concrete statistical points. </p>

<p><strong>Is it: I'm new to this technique and I want you to go through the output and tell me how to think about it?</strong> That's usually far too much to ask. Are we to assume that you know nothing and need everything explained? That's like asking us to write a lengthy personal tutorial, but those already exist. That's the lecture you should have had or the textbook chapter you should have read (or even the Wikipedia article that is, surprisingly, quite good). By all means, <strong>ask specific technical points, while showing that you have made some effort to understand what you are doing</strong>, but don't expect that how do I interpret this output? is a switch that will set an expert going on a detailed interpretation. </p>
