| Abstract: | We introduce a very general “forward” method of data analysis that starts from a small, robustly chosen subset of the data and shows the effect of adding observations by a forward search. Powerful diagnostic procedures result: The observations are ordered by their agreement with the proposed transformation, masking is overcome, and the inferential effect of each observation is clear. We apply the resulting method to the transformation of both univariate and multivariate data. Other applications of the forward search are mentioned. |
