One of the challenges for people learning R is this: there are often many ways to accomplish the same goal. This is, of course, also a benefit (if you don’t like the first approach, just try another one!). But when you’re just starting out and don’t have much experience with R, multiple solutions to a […]
Using Word Reference Documents with RMarkdown to Create Custom Reports
Defaults are the worst. See this plot? If you see a plot that looks like this, you know two things: It’s made with ggplot The person who made it didn’t even take the time to change any of the defaults Don’t settle for defaults! It’s one of the messages I discuss throughout the data visualization […]
How R Has Been Used to Look at Issues of Race and Policing
The last few weeks have brought global protests over police violence against black people and other people of color. These protests have sprung up in response to the death of George Floyd, but their size shows that they are about more than the brutal killing of one man. The breadth and depth of a complex […]
Why I’m Donating 1% of Sales to Important Causes
For a while now, I’ve been considering donating revenue from my business to support groups working for social justice. The murder of George Floyd and the protests that have sprung up in its aftermath have convinced me that it is time to do this. Starting today, I’m donating 1% of all sales of online courses to groups working to […]
How to Add Color to Titles Using the ggtext Package
If you read experts on data visualization, you’ll start to see some common suggestions. One of these is use titles not just to describe your chart, but to explain your findings. Instead of generic titles like “Change in Math Scores, 2017-2018 to 2018-2019,” they suggest, try something like, “Most Students Improved Their Math Scores From […]
How to Download Data in R
When you work with most data analysis tools, the first step in any project is to download your data. Your workflow might look something like this: Go to the website where the data is located Find the data you need Download the data to your computer Copy the data to where you need to in […]