| Sumario: | The literature of current sociological research shows conspicuously few studies that make careful use of any accepted theory of sampling. This situation seems to be due partly to difficulties in imposing the severe requirements of a mathematical sampling theory upon the complex and uncontrolled problems which sociologists usually choose to study, partly to the prevalence of an imperfect understanding of the existing theory and its demands, and finally to the failure of the theory itself to provide many needed sampling errors for stratified samples. The present paper is an attempt to interpret, in as non-mathematical and as practical a way as possible, the meaning of the basic sampling theory as applied to social research, in the hope of directing more attention to the problem and some of its difficulties. In this case, the chance, p, of throwing a head or a six, or of a person dying, is a function of the number of sides and balance of a penny or die, or of the age, sex, and living conditions of a person.
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