Easy R: Access, Prepare, Visualize, Explore Data, and Write Papers

Do you want to learn R? This book is built on the premise that anyone with a bit of free time and a healthy curiosity can learn to use R in their studies or at work. The authors focus on using R to do useful things like writing reports, creating data and graphs, accessing datasets collected by others, preparing data, and conducting simple data analysis.

In this book you’ll learn how to: install R and RStudio®, and set up an RStudio® project and folders; write an essay with graphs based on simple real-world data using R Markdown; create variables from everyday numeric information and visualize data through ­five types of charts—bar plot, histogram, pie chart, scatter plot, and time series line plot—to identify patterns in the data; write and run R programs, and prepare your data following the tidyverse approach; import external datasets into R, install R data packages, and carry out initial data validity checks; conduct exploratory data analysis through three exercises involving data on voting outcomes, natural resource consumption, and gross domestic product (GDP) via data visualization, correlation coeffi­cient, and simple regression; and write a research paper on the impact of GDP per capita on life expectancy using R Markdown.

Student-friendly language and examples (such as binge-watched shows on Netflix, and the top 5 songs on Spotify), cumulative learning, and practice exercises make this a must-have guide for a variety of courses where data are used and reports need to be written.