Introductory Statistics with R (Paperback)

by Peter Dalgaard (Author)
Key Phrases: numeric vector code, continuity correction data, null deviance, Estimate Std, Analysis of Variance Table Response, Adjusted R-squared (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

From reviews of the first edition:

TECHNOMETRICS

"…extensive, well organized, and well documented…The book is an elegant R companion, suitable for the statistically initiated who want to program their own analyses. For experienced statisticians and data analysts, the book provides a good overview of the basic statistical analysis capabilities of R and presumably prepares readers for later migration to S…The format of this compact book is attractive…The book makes excellent use of fonts and intersperses graphics near the codes that produced them. Output from each procedure is dissected line by line to link R code with the computed result…I can recommend [this book] to its target audience. The author provides an excellent overview of R. I found the wealth of clear examples educational and a practical way to preview both R and S."

"The scope of the book, introductory statistics, is a very useful set of methods in parametric and non-parametric statistics up to logistic regression and survival analysis. … Where many constructs in R are very attractive for mathematical oriented users, e.g. matrices, Dalgaard succeeded in convincing me that with little extra effort they can be made very useful to less mathematically oriented people, e.g. by specifying row and column names, and proposing quite attractive ways to specify for example ‘subsets’ of rows and columns." (Dr. H. W. M. Hendriks, Kwantitatieve Methoden, Vol. 72B8, 2003)

"R is an Open Source implementation of the well-known S language. It works on multiple computing platforms and can be freely downloaded. R is thus ideally suited for teaching at many levels as well as for practical data analysis and methodological development. This book provides an elementary-level introduction to R, targeting both non-statistician scientists in various fields and students of statistics. … Brief sections introduce the statistical methods before they are used. A supplementary R package can be downloaded and contains the data sets." (Zentralblatt für Didaktik der Mathematik, August, 2004)

"This is a nice book on statistical methods and statistical computing in R, a language and environment for statistical computing and graphs: this dialect of the S language is available as free software through internet. … Explanation of statistical methods, together with an interpretation of statistical concepts, is the prevailing style of the text. They are illustrated by plenty of practical examples, all computed using R. This book will be useful for novices in applied statistics or in computing in R." (European Mathematical Society Newsletter, September, 2003)

"The book is an elegant R companion, suitable for the statistically initiated who want to program their own analyses. For experienced statisticians and data analysts, the book provides a good overview of the basic statistical analysis capabilities of R … prepares readers for later migration to S. … I can recommend Introductory Statistics With R to its target audience. The author provides an excellent overview of R. I found the wealth of clear examples educational and a practical way to preview both R and S." (Thomas D. Sandry, Technometrics, Vol. 45 (3), 2003)

"R is both a statistical computer environment and a programming language designed to perform statistical analysis and to produce adequate corresponding graphics. … The present book is … a very useful guide for introducing a number of basic concepts and techniques necessary to practical statistics, covering both elementary statistics and actual programming in the R language. The book is organized in 12 chapters and three appendices, each chapter ending with a beneficial section of proposed exercises." (Silvia Curteanu, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1006, 2003)

Product Description
R is an Open Source implementation of the well-known S language. It works on multiple computing platforms and can be freely downloaded. R is thus ideally suited for teaching at many levels as well as for practical data analysis and methodological development. This book provides an elementary-level introduction to R, targeting both non-statistician scientists in various fields and students of statistics. The main mode of presentation is via code examples with liberal commenting of the code and the output, from the computational as well as the statistical viewpoint. Brief sections introduce the statistical methods before they are used. A supplementary R package can be downloaded and contains the data sets. All examples are directly runnable and all graphics in the text are generated from the examples. The statistical methodology covered includes statistical standard distributions, one- and two-sample tests with continuous data, regression analysis, one- and two-way analysis of variance, regression analysis, analysis of tabular data, and sample size calculations. In addition, the last four chapters contain introductions to multiple linear regression analysis, linear models in general, logistic regression, and survival analysis. Peter Dalgaard is associate professor at the Biostatistical Department at the University of Copenhagen and has extensive experience in teaching within the PhD curriculum at the Faculty of Health Sciences. He was chairman of the Danish Society for Theoretical Statistics from 1996 to 2000. Peter Dalgaard has been a key member of the R Core Team since August 1997 and is well known among R users for his activity on the R mailing lists.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Springer (January 9, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0387954759
• ISBN-13: 978-0387954752
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #182,792 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good book where there are few, September 4, 2002

By	Roger Peng (Baltimore, MD USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Introductory Statistics with R is an important book for a rapidly developing field. R is an extremely powerful statistical computing environment which suffers from the same problem as almost every other free software project -- a lack of quality documentation. Dalgaard fills a major gap with this book, that is, a guide to using R for many standard statistical problems.

For some time now, users have had to make do with S-PLUS books which contained some overlap with R. Now R users have a book they can call their own. After briefly discussing the R system and the language basics, Dalgaard goes through what might be covered in an advanced undergraduate data analysis course. Throughout the book, code examples and output are carefully interspersed so that the reader doesn't go too long without having a concrete example.

Dalgaard leaves out some advanced topics such as time series, spatial statistics, etc. (some of which are nicely covered in Modern Applied Statistics with S by Venables and Ripley) but that is probably for the best. The book is not bloated, nicely priced and I would recommend it to any advanced undergrad or first year grad student wanting to learn how to do statistical analysis in R.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Twofold win: great introduction to useful statistics and R programming, August 28, 2005

By	Isaac S. Kohane "zakthehack" (Newton, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Despite the web, there are learning curves sufficiently steep that a well-organized book is the most effective introduction. However, too many of these introductions, particularly in programming and/or statistics are written with low content and high redundancy or with impenetrably high-density content. So, it is a rare sign of pedagogical mastery combined with the genuine confidence of the experienced practioner when an introductory book manages to achieve a balance that is just right.

As I become more familiar with R, I still carry around this book in my briefcase for the occasional reread during which I uncover a nugget I had missed. When I have told this to my colleagues in computer science or bioinformatics, they immediately reveal that they share my enthusiasm for Dalgaard's work.

Let's be clear: this is a book that walks you through introductory and highly useful statistics while introducing you to the most effective ways to use R to perform these biostatistical analyses. It is not a programming book, nor is that its intent.

41 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very readable introduction, April 24, 2003

By	Alan Mead (Lockport, IL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book provides a very readable introduction to basic statistical analysis using R (with occational references to S-Plus). The table of contents displays the topics and I thought they were generally well covered in enough detail to compute the statistics (but this is not a statistics text). Especially helpful are the additional analysis steps, such as graphing results, and the peripheral R issues. Small things I would change: expanded coverage of manipulating data (e.g., SPSS's RECODE, TEMPORARY, MERGE FILE,...), more explicit instructions on installing the example data (it's at the end of the installation Appendix), discussion of interactions in ANOVA and regression, discussion of ANCOVA, and finally I would have liked a quick overview of the available packages and the stats they provide. But these are small issues; it's a great book.