Winsorize

Winsorization is one method of handling outliers in a distribution of data and giving the distribution more desirable statistical properties. To Winsorize, one converts the values of data points that are outlyingly high to the value of the highest data point not considered to be an outlier. For example, if a survey item on respondents’ number of past-year sexual partners yielded substantial frequencies of answers of 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, and 10 and one answer of 100, then Winsorization would convert the 100 to 10. The outlyingly high values are reduced in magnitude (or reined in) to a value that is still large but not as extreme. An analogous procedure can also handle outliers at the low end of the distribution; these values ...

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