A brief introduction to R and R studio
Cody Dingsen · 2024
In the introductory chapter of our book, readers are gently ushered into the world of data analysis and statistical computing using R Studio, a powerful integrated development environment (IDE) for the R programming language. The chapter serves as a foundational stepping stone for those new to R Studio or programming in general. This chapter first discusses why we used R Studio as our data analysis software. Then, we describe the fundamental aspects of R Studio, such as its interface, R script, and R library, as well as how to enter and read data into R from other databases. We also describe some basic ways to view and save data as an R dataset. This chapter is not an R user manual but is meant to get us started using R and R Studio. Once R Studio is up and running, we guide readers through their first R script, introducing basic concepts such as variables, data types, and arithmetic operations, laying the groundwork for more R use in subsequent chapters.