Furthermore, what if we would like not only a single estimate of the unknown population parameter, but also a range of highly plausible values? Going back to the Obama poll article, it stated that the pollsters’ estimate of the proportion of all young Americans who supported President Obama was 41%. But in addition it stated that the poll’s “margin of error was plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.” This “plausible range” was [41% - 2.1%, 41% + 2.1%] = [38.9%, 43.1%]. This range of plausible values is what’s known as a confidence interval, which will be the focus of the later sections of this chapter.