R help - Oct 2008 - lme and lmer df's and F-statistics again

Dear R-users,

I did do a thorough search and read many articles and forum threads on the
lme and lmer methods and their pitfalls and problems. I, being not a good
statistician but a mere "user", came to the conclusion that the most
correct
form of reporting statistics for a mixed linear model would be to report the
parameter estimates and SEs, and, if the sample size is considerably high,
p-values of a student's t-test on those. 

Now, I did that in my article and I got a response from a reviewer that I
additionally should give the degrees of freedom, and the F-statistics. From
what I read here, that would be incorrect to do, and I sort of intuitively
also understand why (at least I think I do). 

Well, writing on my rebuttal, I find myself being unable to explain in a
few, easy to understand (and, at the same time, correct) sentences stating
that it is not a good idea to report (most likely wrong) dfs and F
statistics. Can somebody here help me out with a correct explanation for a
laymen? 

Any help is dearly appreciated,

Jule
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Julia S. <julia.schroeder <at> gmail.com> writes:
> Now, I did that in my article and I got a response from a reviewer that I
> additionally should give the degrees of freedom, and the F-statistics. From
> what I read here, that would be incorrect to do, and I sort of intuitively
> also understand why (at least I think I do). 
... 
> Well, writing on my rebuttal, I find myself being unable to explain in a
> few, easy to understand (and, at the same time, correct) sentences stating
> that it is not a good idea to report (most likely wrong) dfs and F
> statistics. Can somebody here help me out with a correct explanation for a
> laymen? 
Feeling with you, and hoping some day this will be resolved. I am sure you 
have read Douglas Bates'

http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/R/Rhelp02a/archive/76742.html

but I thought this was temporary. The only workaround I have is not to use 
lmer for gaussian models. 

Dieter