Measures of central tendency include the mean, median and mode, while measures of variability include the standard deviation (or variance), the minimum and maximum values of the variables, kurtosis and skewness.
[5] Descriptive statistics provide simple summaries about the sample and about the observations that have been made.
These summaries may either form the basis of the initial description of the data as part of a more extensive statistical analysis, or they may be sufficient in and of themselves for a particular investigation.
For example, the shooting percentage in basketball is a descriptive statistic that summarizes the performance of a player or a team.
In the business world, descriptive statistics provides a useful summary of many types of data.
Characteristics of a variable's distribution may also be depicted in graphical or tabular format, including histograms and stem-and-leaf display.