[R] aov documentation page: question

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Mon, 25 Oct 2004, AJ Smit wrote:

> I was looking at the aov documentation page and came across the 
> following which seems like a contradiction to me:
>
> " This provides a wrapper to |lm| for fitting linear models to balanced 
> or unbalanced experimental designs." (I presume 'This' refers to aov)
> 
> and
>
> "|aov| is designed for balanced designs, and the results can be hard to 
> interpret without balance"

and that is part of a Note, not even a whole sentence of it.  In 
particular, the note has extra force for the multistratum designs 
mentioned there.

> So, do I use it for unbalanced designs?

You _can_ use it, but the results _can_ be hard to interpret.  That is not
a `contradiction' -- perhaps you need to consult your dictionary?  You may
do better to use something else, like lme(), hence the `Note'.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595