Welcome

This book covers the essential exploratory techniques for summarizing data with R. These techniques are typically applied before formal modeling commences and can help inform the development of more complex statistical models. Exploratory techniques are also important for eliminating or sharpening potential hypotheses about the world that can be addressed by the data you have. We will cover in detail the plotting systems in R as well as some of the basic principles of constructing informative data graphics. We will also cover some of the common multivariate statistical techniques used to visualize high-dimensional data.

Stay in Touch!

Thanks for purchasing this book. If you are interested in hearing more from me about things that I’m working on (books, data science courses, podcast, etc.), I have a regular podcast called Not So Standard Deviations that I co-host with Dr. Hilary Parker, a Data Scientist at Stitch Fix. On this podcast, Hilary and I talk about the craft of data science and discuss common issues and problems in analyzing data. We’ll also compare how data science is approached in both academia and industry contexts and discuss the latest industry trends. You can listen to recent episodes on our web page or you can subscribe to it in iTunes or your favorite podcasting app.

For those of you who purchased a printed copy of this book, I encourage you to go to the Leanpub web site and obtain the e-book version, which is available for free. The reason is that I will occasionally update the book with new material and readers who purchase the e-book version are entitled to free updates (this is unfortunately not yet possible with printed books).

Thanks again for purchasing this book and please do stay in touch!