# 4.4.2 - General Format of a Confidence Interval

In putting the two properties above together, the center of our interval should be the point estimate for the parameter of interest. With the estimated standard error of the point estimate, we can include a measure of confidence to our estimate by forming a margin of error.

This you may have readily seen whenever you have heard or read a sample survey result (e.g. a survey of the current approval rating of the President, or attitude citizens have on some new policy). In such surveys, you may hear reference to the "44% of those surveyed approved of the President's reaction" (this is the sample proportion), and "the survey had a 3.5% margin or error, or ± 3.5%." This latter number is the margin of error.

With the point estimate and the margin of error, we have an interval for which the group conducting the survey is confident the parameter value falls (i.e. the proportion of U.S. citizens who approve of the President's reaction). In this example, that interval would be from 40.5% to 47.5%.

This example provides the general construction of a confidence interval:

General form of a confidence interval
$$sample\ statistic \pm margin\ of\ error$$

The margin of error will consist of two pieces. One is the standard error of the sample statistic. The other is some multiplier, $$M$$, of this standard error, based on how confident we want to be in our estimate. This multiplier will come from the same distribution as the sampling distribution of the point estimate; for example, as we will see with the sample proportion this multiplier will come from the standard normal distribution. The general form of the margin of error is shown below.

General form of the margin of error
$$\text{Margin of error}=M\times \hat{SE}(\text{estimate})$$

*the multiplier, $$M$$, depends on our level of confidence