Appendix 1: Getting Started with R
22.6 Get your computer ready
22.6.1 Start here
Watch this video. The links for installing R and R studio are in the next sections.
22.6.2 Install R
R is the core software. It runs under the hood. You never see it. To use R, you need another piece of software that provides a user interface. The software we will use for this is R Studio.
22.6.3 Install R Studio
R Studio is a slick (very slick) graphical user interface (GUI) for developing R projects.
22.6.4 Install R Markdown
In this class, we will write code to analyze data using R Markdown. R markdown is a version of Markdown. Markdown is tool for creating a document containing text (like microsoft Word), images, tables, and code that can be output to the three modern output formats: html (web pages), pdf (reports and documents), and microsoft word (okay, this isn’t modern but it is widely used).
R Markdown can output pdf files. The mechanism for this is to first create a LaTeX (“la-tek”) file. LaTeX is an amazing tool for creating professional pdf documents. You do not need PDF output for BIO 414/513. The directions for installing R Markdown include directions for installing LaTeX. This is optional, for this class, but I encourage you to do it.
22.7 Start learning R Studio
R Studio Essentials, Programming Part 1 (Writing code in RStudio)
Getting Started with R Markdown
Andy Field’s RStudio basics of R Markdown
Data Visualisation chapter from R for Data Science
Graphics for communication chapter from R for Data Science
Youtube: An Introduction to The data.table Package
Coursera: The data.table Package