An ANOVA can be described as a [regression with dummy variables][1]. You could for example calculate the sums of squares treatment in an ANOVA table using the coefficients from a linear model > y <- rnorm(10) > x1 <- as.factor(c(0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1)) > y.bar <- mean(y) > f1 <- lm(y ~ x1) > sum(((f1$coef[1]) - y.bar)^2)*6 + sum(((f1$coef[1] + f1$coef[2]) - y.bar)^2)*4 [1] 1.784887 > anova(f1) Analysis of Variance Table Response: y Df Sum Sq Mean Sq F value Pr(>F) x1 1 1.7849 1.7849 1.596 0.242 Residuals 8 8.9470 1.1184 However, when using two or more continuous predictors > x2 <- rnorm(10) > x3 <- rnorm(10) > f2 <- lm(y ~ x2 + x3) > anova(f2) Analysis of Variance Table Response: y Df Sum Sq Mean Sq F value Pr(>F) x2 1 0.7797 0.77970 0.5959 0.4654 x3 1 0.7934 0.79336 0.6064 0.4617 Residuals 7 9.1588 1.30841 How are sums of squares calculated and how could they be interpreted? [1]: https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/175246/why-is-anova-equivalent-to-linear-regression