I'm trying to understand when to report the standard error.
When reporting results in a scientific paper or essay, should any mean values also have the standard error reported alongside?
For example, let's say you measure the amount of toys a child buys each week over a year. You decide to calculate monthly averages. Should you also calculate the standard error and report this alongside?
Such as "In January the monthly mean of toys bought were 4 (+/- 0.7)"
Example Dataset
Toys Bought each week
Week 1: 4
Week 2: 3
Week 3: 4
Week 4: 1
Monthly average: 3
Standard Deviation: 1.41421
Standard Error: 0.707106781187
Summary Question
Should you always report the standard error when reporting a mean value, or is the standard error only applicable to certain things?