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You have in front of you the third edition of the “Probability and Statistical Inference,” a text originally published in 1996. I have been using this book in the classroom since then, and it has always been interesting to see how it serves the students, how they react to it, and what could still be done to make it better. These reflections prompted me to prepare a second edition, published in 2007. But academia is changing quickly; who the students are is changing, and how we should teach to help them learn is changing as well. This is what made me consider a third edition. The response from Wiley Publishing was positive and my work began.

There were three main changes that I saw as necessary. First, adding a chapter on the basics of Bayesian statistics, as I realized that upper level undergraduate students and graduate students needed an earlier introduction to Bayesian inference. Another change was to make the book more appropriate for the flipped classroom format. I have experimented with it for three years now and it is working quite well. The book introduces and illustrates concepts through more than 400 examples. Preparing the material mainly at home gives students more time in class for questions, discussion, and for problem solving. I have also added over 70 new problems to make the selection easier for the instructor. A third change was including an appendix with an R code that would help students complete projects and homework assignments. My two‐semester class based on this text includes three projects. The first one –in the fall semester–has students present applications of selected distributions, including graphics. Two projects for the spring semester involve resampling methods. The necessary R code is included in the appendix.

There are many people to whom I owe my thanks. First, I would like to thank Wiley Editor Jon Gurstelle, who liked the idea of preparing the third edition. After Jon accepted another job elsewhere, the book and I came under the excellent care of the Editorial Teams of Mindy Okura‐Mokrzycki, Kathleen Santoloci, Linda Christina, and Kimberly Monroe‐Hill who have supported me throughout this process. I would also like to thank Carla Koretsky, the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Western Michigan University, and WMU Provost, Sue Stapleton, for granting me a semester‐long administrative sabbatical leave that significantly sped up the progress of the book.

I am indebted to several of my students for their valuable comments. I am also grateful to my departmental colleagues, especially Hyun Bin Kang and Duy Ngo, who used the text in class and gave me their valuable feedback. Hyun Bin also helped me with the formatting of the R code in the appendix. Finally, I thank my husband, Jerzy, for his support and encouragement.

MNB

November 2020