Providing a strong conceptual foundation, "The Essentials of Political Analysis" walks students through the basics of measuring concepts, formulating and testing hypotheses, and describing variables. The author's engaging and straightforward prose clearly introduces key terms and concepts while chapter-opening objectives cue students to learning goals. Over eighty tables and figures enhance important textual material. Class-tested chapter exercises promote skill application and aid student review. Fans of Pollock's practical introduction to the methods course will appreciate the second edition's many improvements, from more comparative and international material to a brand new chapter on logistic regression. Introducing students to one of the discipline's most widely used statistical tools, students learn the logic of logistic regression, maximum likelihood estimation and how to convert logic into probabilities.