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SAS Press» Authorline
Xitao Fan, coauthor of upcoming book,SAS for Monte Carlo Studies: A Guide for Quantitative Researchers talks with Authorline
Dr. Xitao Fan is coauthor of SAS for Monte Carlo Studies: A Guide for Quantitative Researchers. Dr. Fan is an Associate Professor at the Curry School of Education, University of Virginia. He specializes in educational/psychological measurement and quantitative research methods in social and behavioral sciences. He has been a SAS user for more than ten years and has used SAS in his Monte Carlo simulation studies on many occasions.For more about the authors, please visit the BBU companion Web site.
Xitao Fan talks with Authorline about his first BBU book. His coauthors are Ákos Felsovályi, M.S., a vice president of Risk Architecture at Citigroup; Stephen A. Sivo, Ph.D., a Research Psychologist and an Assistant Professor of Educational Research at the University of Central Florida; and Sean C. Keenan, Ph.D., a vice president in Citigroup's Risk Architecture Group.
- Authorline (AL): What was your motivation for writing your book?
- Xitao Fan (XF): When I was in graduate school, I started reading research papers involving Monte Carlo studies, and
became interested in this approach. I noticed that people described using other programming languages (e.g., FORTRAN) to write
statistical simulation programs. I am a SAS user, and it naturally occurred to me that I could use SAS
to get the job done because SAS has both programming and statistical capabilities. In using SAS for doing some
Monte Carlo simulation studies of my own, I struggled in putting a lot of puzzle pieces together,
and experienced many trials and errors. It then occurred to me that to put together some basic procedures
for simulation in a book or monograph may benefit many other SAS users who are interested in this line
of work. That led me to getting in touch with the SAS Publications staff to get this book project started.
- AL: Who are you targeting with your book?
- XF: The audience for this book is any SAS user who is interested in simulation work. The purpose of this
book is to explain the basic procedures in simulation work, and how these simulation procedures can be implemented in SAS.
We want to provide a foundation for the readers who are interested in using SAS for simulation work, and hope that readers may
build on what is presented in this book and move on to higher levels. But even for sophisticated SAS users, they may still find
some tricks and examples beneficial and helpful.
- AL: What features of the book are you especially pleased with?
- XF: This book contains a lot of SAS simulation program examples. There may be other books or monographs on the topic of
Monte Carlo research, but we have not seen one that actually provides many working program examples. The readers may read those books
and have a good conceptual understanding of simulation work, but still do not know how the simulation can be implemented.
The examples provided in this book provide a step-by-step guide that will lead the readers to become comfortable in implementing
his/her own simulation research project. I think that this is what distinguishes this book from others on this topic.
- AL: How will your book benefit SAS users?
- XF: We experienced many trials and errors in our research while we were attempting to do simulation work by using SAS.
We are confident that, because of this book, other SAS users can avoid some of those trials and errors we experienced ourselves.
- AL: What were some of the joys of writing this book?
- XF: Writing a book may incur both joys and heartache, and this one is not an exception. In putting many puzzle pieces together,
we learned a lot of things which we previously were only vaguely aware of. We have also been impressed that the SAS Publications
staff has been tremendously helpful and flexible
- AL: How did you develop as a writer while you were creating this book?
- XF: I am more familiar with writing articles for academic journals. But writing this book was quite different
from writing research articles for professional journals. In addition, several authors were involved, so there were issues in terms
of transition from one chapter to another by different authors. Among our coauthors, we were able to work out some
general guidelines, and that made my coordination and final editing much easier.
- AL: What did you learn while writing this book that would be important for other authors to know?
- XF: In planning for the book, give yourself more time than you think you will need. Invariably, it will turn out
that you do not have enough time. It is important to keep focused, even when it may appear that you are not making any progress.
If you think or anticipate that you will not keep up with the schedule, share that early with the SAS Publications staff.
- AL: How did you decide to publish with SAS?
- XF: To decide to publish with SAS is a natural choice. Initially, when I had this idea of writing a book on Monte
Carlo simulation research, I considered using both FORTRAN and SAS as programming languages, and working with a more general publisher for
the book. That idea did not go very far, and I changed my mind and decided to focus on SAS only because SAS is an integrated system.
Once this decision was made, to publish with SAS became natural. Of course, the initial encouragement from the SAS Publications staff
reinforced this decision.
- AL: Are you glad you decided to publish with SAS? If so, what has made the experience a good one?
- XF: We have been very happy that we worked together with SAS. Over the years when we were working with the SAS
Publications staff, we greatly appreciated the encouragement, the flexibility, and the professionalism demonstrated by the SAS Publications staff.
- AL: Your book will soon be back from the printer in just a few weeks. How does it feel to be in the home stretch of such a long project?
- XF: After all this time, it feels really good to see the book project coming to fruition. We finally feel that
we have accomplished what we planned to do. The other day, I showed the book cover design to my wife and kid, and they were both proud of
my work and decided that we would have a small family celebration for the successful completion of the book.
- AL: What advice would you give to potential authors?
- XF: If you have an idea that may be suitable for a book, do not hesitate to discuss the idea with the SAS
Publications staff. Who knows? It may be an idea well worth a book. But writing a book always takes more time than originally planned, and
there will be un-anticipated obstacles on the way. So give yourself some liberal time limits, and avoid
being too ambitious or aggressive in your publication timeline.
- AL: How were you able to balance your time between your career and writing this book?
- XF: Time was always an issue while we were so busy with our regular work. Because of this, this book was delayed quite
a bit from the originally planned publication schedule. But if we had waited until we had the free time to work on the book, this book
would never have been completed. So even if we were busy with our career, we had to stay focused on the book project. As a matter of fact,
for a period of time, we were in very bad shape in terms of following the schedule. We were happy to get back on
track, and eventually bring the project to its completion.
- AL: When you aren't writing or consulting, how do you like to spend your free time?
- XF: Unfortunately, besides my teaching and research in the university, and my editorial work for an academic journal, I do not have that much free time. But every week, I manage to squeeze out some time for physical activities such as swimming and work outs on a treadmill or a stationary bike. When my family was in Utah, we enjoyed skiing in the canyon behind our house. Now, skiing is not nearly as convenient in central Virginia. On weekends, our family enjoys cooking, taking short driving trips, and visiting friends who are scattered around Maryland, Washington DC, and Virginia.
