1.2 Who is this book for?

While this book was originally written for pirates, I think that anyone who wants to learn R can benefit from this book. If you haven’t had an introductory course in statistics, some of the later statistical concepts may be difficult, but I’ll try my best to add brief descriptions of new topics when necessary. Likewise, if R is your first programming language, you’ll likely find the first few chapters quite challenging as you learn the basics of programming. However, if R is your first programming language, that’s totally fine as what you learn here will help you in learning other languages as well (if you choose to). Finally, while the techniques in this book apply to most data analysis problems, because my background is in experimental psychology I will cater the course to solving analysis problems commonly faced in psychological research.

What this book is

This book is meant to introduce you to the basic analytical tools in R, from basic coding and analyses, to data wrangling, plotting, and statistical inference.

What this book is not

This book does not cover any one topic in extensive detail. If you are interested in conducting analyses or creating plots not covered in the book, I’m sure you’ll find the answer with a quick Google search!