THE SKINNY This book gives you the skinny...the inside information, the real facts...about the method of least squares and polynomial curve fitting in a skinny...very thin, compact...format. This is a 'How to...' book presented in a format resembling a cookbook. As a consequence, mathematical derivations, proofs, theory, etc. are relegated to the Appendix. GENERAL BACKGROUND AND REVIEW Curve fitting is generally of interest for one of two reasons: (1) to allow the interpolation of an array or table of data; or (2) to allow the extrapolation of those data. In this book we focus on fitting data...