Vincent Porretta (University of Alberta)

The use of the R language and environment for statistical computing and graphics has recently increased in the fields of linguistics and psychology. A likely reason for this increase is R’s power and flexibility in handling large datasets, computing complex statistics, and producing customizable, publication-quality plots. However, R’s learning curve can seem daunting to the novice user. Through hands-on experience, this course will provide participants with a comprehensive, step-by-step introduction to using R. Utilizing real data, participants will learn to setup R, import/export data, check and transform data format, compute descriptive statistics, and produce/save basic plots.  Through this process, participants will begin to understand how data are handled in R, as well as discover typical issues that often arise in practice. In doing so we will find simple solutions and tips that will lead to more confident usage of R.  It would be helpful for participants to bring their own laptop for use in this course. There are no prerequisites.