ABSTRACT
Sometimes, Rorschach researchers are faced with seemingly knotty decisions concerning the most appropriate methods of analyzing, interpreting, or reporting findings. Every investigator should strive to get the most out of any data set and to generate conclusions about the data that will be useful to others. At times, however, researchers tend to neglect the dilemma with which they are confronted when selecting an appropriate method of data analysis: The data are! This seemingly incomplete statement does, in fact, state a basic axiom in research. The objective and procedures of analysis are to reduce the broad data set into a framework from which conclusions can be drawn. Unfortunately, any reduction of the basic data set, statistical or otherwise, means that some of the data will be less than fully represented. This reduction or simplification of the data set has a price, that is, a loss of fidelity concerning the original data.
