In Step 4, we defined a statistical quantity known as the margin of error. You can think of this quantity as how much the net extends to the left and to the right of the center of our net. The 1.96 multiplier is rooted in the 95% rule of thumb we introduced earlier and the fact that we want the confidence level to be 95%. The value of the margin of error entirely determines the width of the confidence interval. Recall from Subsection 8.5.3 that confidence interval widths are determined by an interplay of the confidence level, the sample size \(n\), and the standard error.