As a sociologist specializing in hunger and food security, I’m often faced with problems in nutrition, but I’m not a nutritionist or physician. I would not dare performing complex nutritional or medical analysis, but would rather refer the task to the proper professionals, and do my job with tools I could understand and manage myself.

The existence of easy software, to some extent, facilitates the illusion that you can become an instant statistician. People make the most terrible mistakes in that way. Software like SPSS is a tool to be used by some people to perform jobs in which they are an expert, and this should be emphasized. You need to know what you are doing.

King Douglas: What is the motivation behind your willingness to help others solve SPSS problems without seeking compensation?...that is, your frequent contributions to the SPSSX e-mail list.

Hector Maletta: My primary goal in this participation, as well as in teaching at the university, is learning—I learn in the process. I make my own ideas clearer. I have an opportunity and incentive to discover new things. I have learned a lot about SPSS by addressing problems posed by people. Of course my main benefit comes from reading other people’s contributions. When somebody poses a problem I have encountered before and somebody more knowledgeable than I am, like Ray Levesque or Marta García-Granero, responds, I can benefit from that immensely.

King Douglas: Say we are coming to you for help with an SPSS problem. What's the best way for us to frame our question?

Hector Maletta: I don’t have a specific recipe. Some will say that when you ask for help with a problem you should provide a detailed explanation of the nature of the problem you are facing along with a sample of the syntax you have already tried and a sample of the data. Maybe. Some people, indeed, don’t explain anything, and that’s bad. But I don’t think you can subject everyone to the same form, because people ask the way they can. Sometimes the person asking the question doesn’t have a clear formulation. If the question is poorly framed, I ask for clarification. I use the question and answer process to help them frame the problem better. Sometimes, when you ask them for clarification they see the solution…”Ah, now I see. Okay, that answers my question.”

King Douglas: Has there been an SPSS problem that you couldn't solve without help?

Hector Maletta: Many times I’ve asked for help from the SPSSX e-mail list, especially when it comes to writing macros and scripts. Sometimes I’ve sent questions about statistics. When I don’t find the answer in my library or online, I ask the list. I think posing the question to the list is a way not only to obtain answers to your own problem but also to teach others about the problem and the solution. "Science is the art of posing questions," one of my teachers used to say.

King Douglas: To whom do you turn when you need help solving a problem that involves SPSS?

Hector Maletta: Normally I ask the people on the SPSSX e-mail list. I don’t know anyone near me who knows as much as the people on the list.

King Douglas: What application(s) other than SPSS do you use when reporting the results of SPSS analysis?

Hector Maletta: Microsoft Office: Excel, Word, and, sometimes, PowerPoint. I sometimes use Access if the data come to me in the fashion of a database, though not for reporting of course. A common sequence is: Access / SPSS / Excel / Word / PowerPoint.

King Douglas: Do you have a preferred method of displaying SPSS output in a report?

Hector Maletta: Normally I move the results first to Excel, manipulate them in Excel in several ways, then paste the Excel tables or charts into the Word document, interleaved with the text. Sometimes I copy SPSS tables and paste them directly into Word. Many times I export SPSS tables and produce graphs in Excel instead of making the graphs with SPSS.