

Series: Statistics and Computing
Paperback: 364 pages
Publisher: Springer; 2nd edition (August 15, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9780387790534
ISBN-13: 978-0387790534
ASIN: 0387790535
Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.9 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #43,224 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #7 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > Bioinformatics #27 in Books > Computers & Technology > Software > Mathematical & Statistical #84 in Books > Textbooks > Science & Mathematics > Biology & Life Sciences > Anatomy & Physiology

R is a useful freeware that can represent a hurdle to students and/or professionals who do not have formal training in computer programming. This book helps to clear those hurdles, and introduces a solid foundation from which statistics users can build new tools for their specific analyses. The rest of this review is broken up for experienced and new users.****If you do not have a solid foundation in statistics, this book is not going to help you bridge that gap. Although the title is "Introductory Statistics with R" the author is clear that this is a book to learn how to program intro stats with R, and is not designed to teach any statistics tools. The author assumes you understand statistics and does not clarify statistics terms like p-value, test statistic, degrees of freedom, ANOVA, and the like. ****New to R:Although it may sound like a conundrum, the only way to learn a program is to program. Thankfully learning R can be easy, since the program is free, installs well on nearly all machines, and has detailed help files in various languages around the world. This is an excellent book for the R beginner, but I must stress the importance of ACTUALLY PROGRAMMING while you read this book. You CAN NOT read this book cover to cover and expect to learn R, programming doesn't work that way. This book can be a great resource for people who are brand new to R, but it requires hands on utilization of the source codes provided. Thankfully, this step is made that much easier for new users with a detailed explanation of how to obtain the ISWR package used with this text. Like everything in R, packages are free, and contain suites of functions and sometimes data.
I have prepared and delivered introductory courses and workshops on statistics and R for the past 3 years. As part of this work, I have reviewed more than a dozen different introductory R books. This is one of my favourite choices (if not my top one). Pete Dalgaard has been a member of the R Core Team since 1997, being a very active and knowledgeable expert on statistics with R. This quickly becomes apparent in the book, since you will find many tricks and smart procedures to accomplish many R tasks, most notably in the data preparation stage (where you spend 70-80% of all working time).A previous requirement is to acquire basic knowledge on the statistical tools and techniques presented throughout the book. This volume is focused on performing statistical analyses with R, not offering a complete introductory statistics course. However, each chapter starts with a very useful recap of foundations and theory details for the statistical methods and tools presented in it. You can also find good references for further reading.Summarizing the main positive points:* Very clear explanations. The writing style is direct, informative, easy-to-follow.* Content organization is very clear. Every chapter has been conceived as an independent unit that you can read separately (except for the first introductory chapters to R syntax and routinary operations). Thus, you can either read it cover to cover or just jump directly into the chapter or section of your interest (as a reference).* There is an accompaning R package 'ISwR', that can be found in CRAN (as usual). It includes all datasets and utility functions presented in the text. This is a must to speed up practical sessions using this text as a reference, as well as for self-study.
Introductory Statistics with R (Statistics and Computing) Strategic Computing: DARPA and the Quest for Machine Intelligence, 1983-1993 (History of Computing) Dependable Computing for Critical Applications 5 (Dependable Computing and Fault-Tolerant Systems) Wireless Computing in Medicine: From Nano to Cloud with Ethical and Legal Implications (Nature-Inspired Computing Series) Introduction to Evolutionary Computing (Natural Computing Series) CUDA Programming: A Developer's Guide to Parallel Computing with GPUs (Applications of Gpu Computing) Introductory Statistics for Business and Economics, 4th Edition Introductory Statistics Photogrammetric Computer Vision: Statistics, Geometry, Orientation and Reconstruction (Geometry and Computing) Even You Can Learn Statistics and Analytics: An Easy to Understand Guide to Statistics and Analytics (3rd Edition) Statistics and Data Analysis for Financial Engineering: with R examples (Springer Texts in Statistics) Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS Statistics, 4th Edition Pablo Picasso: Lithographs and linocuts, 1945-1964 : with an introductory essay on the history of lithography and of the linocut Paganism: Pagan holidays, beliefs, gods and goddesses, symbols, rituals, practices, and much more! An Introductory Guide Hands-on: OpenVPN: Installing and configuring an OpenVPN server and gateway, and setting up OpenVPN clients on Linux and Android (Private and Secure Computing) Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings Exploring Psychology and Christian Faith: An Introductory Guide Bundle: Illustrated Microsoft Office 365 & Office 2016: Introductory, Loose-leaf Version + SAM 365 & 2016 Assessments, Trainings, and Projects with 1 MindTap Reader Multi-Term Printed Access Card HTML, XHTML, and CSS: Introductory (Available Titles Skills Assessment Manager (SAM) - Office 2007) New Perspectives on Blended HTML, XHTML, and CSS: Introductory (New Perspectives Series: Web Design)