Standard deviation (SD) and standard error (SE) are quietly but extensively used in biomedical publications. These terms and notations are used as descriptive statistics (summarizing numerical data), and they are used as inferential statistics (estimating population parameters from samples). I review the use and misuse of SD and SE in several authoritative medical journals and make suggestions ...

A recent Perspective in Nature issued a call for more transparency in the reporting of preclinical research (1). Although this article focused primarily on experimental design, it emphasized the need for improved reporting in the scientific literature. Within the context of preclinical studies, there have been discussions regarding the appropriate reporting of standard error (SE) and standard d...