There are two common definitions of statistics. The first is "turning data into information", the second is "making inferences about populations from samples". These two definitions are quite different, but between them they capture most of what you will learn in most introductory statistics courses. The first, "turning data into information," is a good definition of descriptive statistics—the topic of the first part of this, and most, introductory texts. The second, "making inferences about populations from samples", is a good definition of inferential statistics —the topic of the latter part of this, and most, introductory texts.