[Blindmath] R for Stats brief tutorial requested

[Matthew_2010]

Jonathan,

Thank you very much for this. I took your instructions for a test drive and 
am very pleasantly surprised at the ease of use and simplicity of this R 
application. Ran the same simple stats for my data in excel and found 
identical results. I initially believed the precise R syntax was gonna be a 
problem for me, but now that I know how this works I'm thinking I can 
actually do this.

I found and pasted as much as I could from the archives from 2006 till now 
and couldn't find anything that was of any use getting started--I must have 
definitely missed this message you are referring to since I've copied and 
pasted your R related posts to a text file. Makes sense since I spent some 
time learning how to access information from the archive as its the first 
time I've ever done such a thing.

I guess I should take another look at the list rules, but I'm thinking 
asking these kinds of questions on the list is very pertinent especially for 
the next person looking for these stats related posts in the archives.

The trick Jonathan conveyed regarding adding rterm.exe to the last part of 
the file path on the desktop shortcut for R really does work and makes 
things much easier. For any beginners like me out there, to actually close 
the application you must type q(), and you will then be presented with a Y/N 
choice, you must hit y then enter to actually close the application as 
typing the letter Y alone is not enough.

Thanks tremendously for this Jonathan.

Matthew

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jonathan Godfrey" <a.j.godfrey at massey.ac.nz>
To: "Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics" 
<blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 6:07 PM
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] R for Stats brief tutorial requested


> Hi,
>
> I've posted some of the requested details previously so this version is 
> somewhat shorter than searching the list's archive.
>
> Assuming you are a windows user...
> 1. Install R as per normal.
> 2. On the desktop, look for the shortcut file that runs R.
> 3. edit this shortcut so that it runs rterm.exe instead of rgui.exe.
> 4. click it to make sure its working. You will hear the welcome 
> information if it is working. Quitting can only be achieved by typing 
> "q()". If the gui version runs for some reason, alt f4 will close the 
> application.
>
> Data entry:
> "x=c(4,5,6)" creates an object called x.
>
> Calculation:
> "mean(x)" will return the mean.
> "sd(x)" will return the standard deviation.
>
> I think you should consider sending specific requests to me directly (off 
> list) as much of this is not useful to many list participants.
>
> All my current documents are either too advanced, or reliant on the data 
> source my students have already. I do plan on making my material less 
> textbook dependent in the near future. I do have commitments to deal with 
> this semester for my own students which is getting the way of preparing 
> documents, but can help others with brief requests.
>
> Jonathan
> At 11:48 a.m. 20/08/2009, you wrote:
>>HI all,
>>
>>I have compiled a file with some posts from this list's archives and I'm 
>>hoping I might get a little more help regarding R for stats. In 
>>particular, I'm reading through the R manual and can't seem to figure out 
>>how to do the most basic of computations. If one of you has just a few 
>>minutes to help me get started I would appreciate it greatly. Please 
>>outline how one is to launch R, configure the terminal mode, then find the 
>>standard deviation for the numbers 4 5 and 6. I want to understand what is 
>>being presented by R but can't do so since I know nothing about the syntax 
>>for entering data. If there is a way of entering a data set and receiving 
>>summary stats such as one can do with Excel I would appreciate this much 
>>more since I will be able to see what R can do. At this point I'm going in 
>>circles reading about everything but what I need to know about basic R 
>>data entry. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Matthew
>>
>>
>>
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>
> _____
> Dr A. Jonathan R. Godfrey
> Lecturer in Statistics
> Institute of Fundamental Sciences
> Massey University
> Palmerston North
> Phone: +64-6-356 9099 ext 7705
> Mobile: +64-29-538-9814
> Room: AH2.82
>
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