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What’s New in R: April 7, 2025

Welcome to this week’s edition of ​What’s New in R​! This week, we’re featuring a YouTube tutorial on the {purrr} package, a list of ten great R functions, and a guide on fixing awkward backgrounds in ggplot. Let’s dive in!

Hello Kitty: Intro to {purrr} | TidyX Episode 184

In Episode 184 of TidyX, hosts Ellis Hughes and Patrick Ward delve into the {purrr} package, focusing on the use of map functions to manipulate lists. They explain the importance of using map functions when dealing with data that doesn’t naturally come in a data frame format, such as data from APIs or JSON files. The episode provides a great introduction to map functions, demonstrating how to apply them to the Palmer Penguins dataset to perform various operations, including calculating means, filtering data, and plotting results.

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Ten Great R Functions #3

Erik Gahner Larsen shares a curated list of ten great R functions that can simplify your data analysis tasks. Each function is accompanied by explanations and examples, making it easy to understand and apply them in your projects. At least one of these is likely to be useful to you!

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Fixing Awkward Backgrounds in ggplot2

Cara Thompson offers an insightful guide on fixing awkward backgrounds in ggplot2. Specifically, she talks about how to deal with situations where your plot goes “outside” of the background. There are many ways to deal with this problem and Cara goes over several of them.

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Got any ideas for resources I should feature in future issues of What’s New in R? Leave a comment below!

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David Keyes
By David Keyes
April 7, 2025

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