Editing Five-number summary (section)

==Use and representation==
The five-number summary provides a concise summary of the [[Probability distribution|distribution]] of the observations. Reporting five numbers avoids the need to decide on the most appropriate summary statistic. The five-number summary gives information about the location (from the median), spread (from the quartiles) and range (from the sample minimum and maximum) of the observations. Since it reports [[order statistic]]s (rather than, say, the mean) the five-number summary is appropriate for [[Level of measurement#Ordinal scale|ordinal measurements]], as well as interval and ratio measurements.

It is possible to quickly compare several sets of observations by comparing their five-number summaries, which can be represented graphically using a [[boxplot]].

In addition to the points themselves, many [[L-estimator]]s can be computed from the five-number summary, including [[interquartile range]], [[midhinge]], [[range (statistics)|range]], [[mid-range]], and [[trimean]].

The five-number summary is sometimes represented as in the following table: 
{| class="wikitable" style="margin-right:auto; margin-left:auto;border:none;"
| colspan=2 style="text-align:center;" | median
|-
|1st quartile || 3rd quartile
|-
|Minimum || Maximum
|}