Everitt's reference work runs alphabetically through the working vocabulary of statistics, from actuarial estimators and adaptive sampling designs to added variable plots and onward. Entries are short by design: a plain definition, the defining formula where one is needed, and a bracketed pointer to a journal paper or textbook for readers who want to go further.

Terms in bold thread related headwords together, so that a narrow entry simply redirects to the broader method it belongs to, and figures illustrate the graphical procedures. Alongside core theory - probability rules, clustering models, distributional tests - the dictionary gives generous room to applied fields, especially medical and biological research: clinical trial design, survival analysis, genetic variance, sampling for ecological surveys. Commercial software and teaching packages get headwords of their own.

The result is a lookup tool rather than a textbook, built for a reader who has met an unfamiliar term and wants it explained in a paragraph.