Synopses & Reviews
R is the world's most popular programming language for data analysis and statistical modeling. The Book of R provides an in-depth, beginner-friendly guide to the R language, and teaches you how to use R for common statistical analyses.
In The Book of R you'll learn key programming techniques, including how to manipulate data structures, read in data from a file, and author functions. You'll also be introduced to statistics topics like probability distributions, hypothesis testing, regression analysis, and statistical plots as you learn how to wield R to analyze data. Helpful exercises throughout each chapter will test your knowledge and practice using the language.
The Book of R assumes no prior experience in statistics or programming. It's a great first book for students, researchers, and professionals who want to learn the tools they need to enter the growing world of data analysis.
Synopsis
The Book of R is a comprehensive, beginner-friendly guide to R, the world's most popular programming language for statistical analysis. Even if you have no programming experience and little more than a grounding in the basics of mathematics, you'll find everything you need to begin using R effectively for statistical analysis.
You'll start with the basics, like how to handle data and write simple programs, before moving on to more advanced topics, like producing statistical summaries of your data and performing statistical tests and modeling. You'll even learn how to create impressive data visualizations with R's basic graphics tools and contributed packages, like ggplot2 and ggvis, as well as interactive 3D visualizations using the rgl package.
Dozens of hands-on exercises (with downloadable solutions) take you from theory to practice, as you learn:
- The fundamentals of programming in R, including how to write data frames, create functions, and use variables, statements, and loops
- Statistical concepts like exploratory data analysis, probabilities, hypothesis tests, and regression modeling, and how to execute them in R
- How to access R's thousands of functions, libraries, and data sets
- How to draw valid and useful conclusions from your data
- How to create publication-quality graphics of your results
Combining detailed explanations with real-world examples and exercises, this book will provide you with a solid understanding of both statistics and the depth of R's functionality. Make
The Book of R your doorway into the growing world of data analysis.
About the Author
Tilman M. Davies, Ph.D, is a lecturer at the University of Otago in New Zealand, where he teaches statistics at all university levels. He has programmed in R for 10 years and has taught it in multiple courses. His research, with a focus on applied spatial estimation, has been awarded by the New Zealand Statistical Association. He organizes an annual three-day Introduction to R workshop, which inspired him to write this book as a guide for beginners.