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This has been a very weird four days.

First, I found out that USA Weekend— the weekly newspaper supplement that appears in more than 800 newspapers in the U.S. and is read by 4.7 million people each week — published a cool, little story about Math for Grownups this weekend.  “Man,” I thought. “This is great!”

Then I read the first and only (at the time) comment:

In “Benefits vs. Raise” I am surprised you made the common mistake of thinking you will make less money if you get a raise. If you move to a higher tax bracket it is only the incremental money that is taxed at the higher rate. You should print a correction.

See explanation here

http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2007/04/27/dont-fear-the-higher-tax-bracket-or-why-a-reader-needs-more-cowbell/

Long story short: my explanation in Math for Grownups is correct.  Sadly, for Gregory Connolly, the reporter who wrote this otherwise really nice story, some of the information in the article was not.  In a few days the geeky little corner of the blogosphere that pays attention to these things went nuts.  I’ve gotten emails, nasty tweets and more — even after I posted what I think is a very level-headed response to the original comment, letting readers know that the error was the reporter’s. And even after USA Weekend posted an excerpt from my book that explains (correctly) how math and the tax system work in this situation.*

Today, more people took notice, with a blog post on Huffington Post (USA Today Fails Math for Grownups), Daily Kos (According to USA Today’s Logic, You Should Ask Your Boss for a Pay Cut) and The Columbia Journalism Review (A More than Marginally Embarrassing Mistake).

Hoo-wee!  When math, taxes and mistaken reporting collide, sparks fly!

I’m still trying to figure out if this is a good thing for me or a bad thing. (Is any publicity good publicity?) But this whole experience illustrates a few interesting points:

1. Math matters.  When you think that you don’t need to understand how math applies to the tax code, think again, my sister and brother.  I’ve got dozens of internet commenters and tweeters begging to convince you differently.  And quite honestly, they’re not as nice as I am.

2.  It’s critical to check your assumptions. I’m convinced that Mr. Connolly wouldn’t have made the same mistake had he really considered what he was writing.  Yes, it’s a common mistake and even an element of misinformed political rhetoric to believe that a raise could actually be bad for a person.  But really?  Does that make sense?  Just like with math problems, checking to see if the answer is reasonable can save anyone from a lot of heartache.  (And I’m thinking this reporter has had at least some heartache this week.)

3.  There’s good reason that people are scared of math — big, mean, know-it-alls shame us into believing that a simple misunderstanding or mistake will bring down entire civilizations, crush the delicate sensibilities of our dear children and bring us perilously close to either left- or right-wing political domination.  In other words, if we don’t get every single syllable and number absolutely correct, we are wrong, wrong, wrong and nothing can save us from eternal shame and damnation.

(How many of you felt this way in school?)

But whether or not these internet commenters, bloggers and tweeters would like to admit it, not much about math will cause such drastic, awful consequences.  Sure, there may plenty of people more than willing to shout, “YOU’RE WRONG!” rather than admit that they, too, sometimes feel like math is hard and the tax system can be difficult to comprehend.  But in the end, I’m here to say that the basic math that most of us have to do everyday both matters and won’t kill you.

The fact that I’m still alive, sober and writing about this after the frenetic tongue lashing I’ve received over the last few days is testament to this.  You can survive making math mistakes (or other’s math mistakes).  And I honestly hope that someone is telling the poor Gregory Connolly this very thing.

So let’s fess up.  What was your last math mistake? Did it cause the ground to open up and swallow up innocent puppies and kittens? Or did you just lose a little cash or miss the previews at a movie or put too much fertilizer on your lawn?

Share your math horror stories in the comments section.

*Update: USA Weekend is continuing to finesse its response to this situation.  The last section of the article has now been rewritten to correct the mistake, and the excerpt from my book has been removed.

Today, I’m the guest poster at Word Count: Freelancing in the Digital Age, the terrific blog for writers by Michelle Rafter.  I’ve talked about why writers need math here Math for Grownups before.  At Word Count, I get down to brass tacks.

Hope you’ll take a look!

Hey, that’s me!

I’ve got good news and bad news.

The bad: You do need math, even as a writer. Whether you’re reporting on a business, interpreting statistics or managing your freelance career, math is a big deal.

The good: You don’t have to like it. The better: Forget about finding cosine or using the quadratic formula. A few basics are all you need. You can start with these:

1. Calculate a percent. You learn that a company’s revenue has fallen by $2.5 million over five years. That’s a lot of money, right? Well, actually it depends on the company’s revenue over the last five years. If total revenue was $5 billion, the company lost 5 percent. To calculate that, divide 2.5 million by 5 billion. But if the company’s total revenue over five years was $5 million, the company lost a whopping 50 percent. Using a percent gets to the meat of those numbers.

Read the rest of the post…

If you’ve ever visited the website of a prescription medication or picked up a brochure from your doctor’s office, you’ve seen the kind of work that Kim Hooper does.  And she’s proof that math and writing are not mutually exclusive endeavors.

As a senior copywriter for an advertising agency, Kim writes brochures, websites and other copy that helps promote a brand or a product.  Since her agency’s primary client is a pharmaceutical company, much of her writing is science-based.

When do you use basic math in your job?

Much of my job involves scanning through research papers about specific drugs and interpreting clinical data in a “sexy,” Madison Avenue way. This tends to involve a bit of math. For example, let’s say we want to point out that our drug is really successful with women over 40 years old. I will look through the demographic tables in the clinical study to create a compelling factoid. Let’s also say that out of 100 women, 60 are over 40 years old. So, when writing a piece, I may have a big headline that says something like, “60% of women in the clinical study were over 40 years old.”

Most of the math I do involves basic addition or subtraction and percentage calculations. Very often, I’ll do percentage calculations for side-effects data. So if 3 patients out of 150 in the clinical study experienced side effects, I’ll take this fact and make sure to call out that 98% of patients did not experience side effects.

Do you use any technology (like calculators or computers) to help with this math?

I do use the calculator built into my PC to double check my work. But I almost always have to do “margin math,” meaning I show my calculations on paper so the client’s regulatory committee can review them.

How do you think math helps you do your job better?

Math keeps my left brain strong. In advertising, the right brain is very important. This is a creative business. We’re trying to find interesting, compelling ways to communicate product messages that may not be that thrilling at first glance. My left brain can help make the messages thrilling. Numbers are very appealing to consumers. If they can see information broken down into easy-to-understand percentages, for example, they may be more likely to try our medication over another one.

How comfortable are you with math?

I’ve always been a bit of a math nerd, and I went all the way through Advanced Placement Calculus in high school. In fact, it was really difficult for me to choose a major in college because I loved math and science and I also loved the arts. For a short time, I double-majored in genetics and psychology. I ended up majoring in communications, which seemed broad enough for me to explore a number of career options. I just happened to fall into a career that makes use of both sides of my brain, which I love. I really enjoy sifting through data and doing the math necessary to make facts come to life.

I think we all get a little rusty if we don’t use math regularly, but it’s been part of my job for a number of years now. There’s no way I could do calculus again, but I have no problem doing basic math. I enjoy it.

Kim Hooper is an advertising copywriter by day, novelist by night. Get to know her work at KimHooperWrites.com.

Do you have questions for Kim?  If so, ask them in the comments section!