Mean vs. Median

What are the differences between mean and median?

Mean and median are two mathematical terms used to describe the average of a set of numbers. The mean is the arithmetic average of the numbers, which is calculated by adding up all the numbers and then dividing by the number of items in the set. The median is the middle number in a set of numbers that has been arranged in numerical order.

For example, the mean of the numbers {3, 5, 7, 9} would be 6, which is calculated by adding 3 + 5 + 7 + 9 and dividing by 4 (the number of items in the set). The median of the same set of numbers would be 5, because it is the middle number in the set when the numbers are placed in numerical order (3, 5, 7, 9).

Sentences: The mean of the test scores was 85, indicating that the class performed exceptionally well. The median salary for the position was $50,000, indicating that the pay is competitive.

Why do people commonly confuse mean and median?

People commonly confuse mean and median because they both involve taking the average of a set of numbers, but they are calculated in different ways. The mean is the average of all of the numbers in the set (sum of all numbers divided by the number of items in the set), while the median is the middle number in the set (after the numbers are arranged in order from smallest to largest). This can be confusing because the mean and median often produce very different results depending on the set of numbers. Additionally, the mean and median can both be used to describe the “average” of a set of numbers, but they are not the same.

What are some ways to make sure you don't confuse mean and median?

Use the correct terms when referring to the two measures. Make sure to use “mean” when referring to the average of all the values in a set and “median” when referring to the middle value in a set.
Carefully review your sentences to make sure the terms “mean” and “median” are used correctly.
If you’re uncertain about the difference between the two measures, look up their definitions and review examples to help clarify the concept.
Ask a friend or colleague to review your sentences to ensure you’re using the correct terms.
If you’re writing about data, use a graph or chart to clearly illustrate the different measures.

About Rephrasely

Getting your wording just right

Paraphrasing is a natural part of the writing process as it helps you clarify your thinking and suit your words to your audience. Using a Rephrasely helps structure and streamline this work, and our paraphrase tool offers 20 modes, many of them free, for accomplishing just this. The 20 modes we offer are diverse, including a summarize tool, a free grammar checker, a mode to simplify text, and a sentence shortener. There are sentence rephrasers and paraphrase rephrase tools, and we pride ourselves on having both, since our reword generator accounts for context at both the sentence and paragraph levels.

When you google paraphrase you will get a variety of results, from a free Rephrasely, to an article spinner, to a general phrase tool, and it can be hard to determine which of these rephrase tools will best help you complete your work. If you simply need to get a word rephrase, that is, reword only small elements within the sentence, many tools will suffice, but there is the risk that you end up with a tool that does not consider context and produces very awkward and ungrammatical sentences. Rephrasing is very much an art, and we’ve built our paraphrase bot to produce the most correct results in 20 modes in over 100 languages, making it the best paraphrasing tool at an exceptionally low cost. So whether you need to paraphrase deutsch, paraphrase greek, or paraphrase bahasa melayu, the next time you think, I need something to paraphrase this for me, you’ll know where to turn.

From keywords to paragraphs

Generating paragraphs with unique ideas can be challenging, and too often writers get stuck at this stage of the writing process. With our paragraph tool, you can enter keywords and let our AI generate paragraphs for you, so that you can have something to work with, refine the output, and become more engaged in your writing.

A paragraph generator creates links between your ideas, such that the output is sensible, unique, and stimulating, very close to what you would expect a thoughtful human paragraph writer to produce.

Paragraph makers are nice, but what about a short story generator? Because our AI is generalized, it serves a story generator, an essay generator, a poem generator, and much more. To generate compelling stories, you should provide the story generator with useful keywords from which it can develop plot elements, including characters, setting details, and any situational information. To generate reasonably good essays, you should likewise provide the essay maker with details around argumentative positions and any other pertinent ideas. If you more specifically want an introduction paragraph generator or conclusion paragraph generator, you can provide starter text and keywords that will best enable our essay creator to produce them.

You may well ask, “is this essay generator free?” Everything on this site is free within a 3-day trial, so you can test and develop confidence in our products. You may also be wondering where this is an essay automatic writer or if it will take a while to get results. All results appear within a matter of seconds, so you can move through your work as quickly as possible.

You may have professional needs for creating paragraphs as well, such as those needed for cover letter. Most of the time a cover letter template includes information that is not relevant to you; by using your own keywords, we can produce cover letter examples that are relevant to your use case and often require very little editing. By using this service, you can also learn how to write a cover letter and achieve the cover letter format you need.

Plagiarism checker free

Like everything else on our site, you can check plagiarism free within a trial, which is a great opportunity for those who want to check a paper for plagiarism without committing to paying before they see results. This free plagiarism checker is great for students and clearly indicates how to check for plagiarism by highlighting areas of similarity between the two texts. Just to be sure you are not accidentally plagiarizing, be sure to check all of your paraphrases as well.