  We show that in order to minimize the uncertainties in the N and O abundances
of low mass, low metallicity (O/H less than or equal to solar/5) emission-line
galaxies, it is necessary to employ separate parameterizations for inferring
Te[N II] and Te[O II] from Te[O III]. In addition, we show that for the above
systems, the ionization correction factor (ICF) for obtaining N/O from N+/O+,
where the latter is derived from optical emission-line flux ratios, is < ICF >
= 1.08 +/- 0.09. These findings are based on state-of-the-art single-star H II
region simulations, employing our own modeled stellar spectra as input. Our
models offer the advantage of having matching stellar and nebular abundances.
In addition, they have O/H as low as solar/50 (lower than any past work), as
well as log(N/O) and log(C/O) fixed at characteristic values of -1.46 and -0.7,
respectively. The above results were used to re-derive N and O abundances for a
sample of 68 systems with 12 + log(O/H) less than or equal to 8.1, whose
de-reddened emission-line strengths were collected from the literature. The
analysis of the log(N/O) versus 12 + log(O/H) diagram of the above systems
shows the following: (1) the largest group of objects forms the well-known N/O
plateau with a value for the mean (and its statistical error) of -1.43
(+.0084/-.0085); (2) the objects are distributed within a range in log(N/O) of
-1.54 to -1.27 in Gaussian fashion around the mean with a standard deviation of
sigma = +.071 / -.084; and (3) a chi-square analysis suggests that only a small
amount of the observed scatter in log(N/O) is intrinsic.
