Resources for learning R

Question

I'm interested in learning R on the cheap. What's the best free resource/book/tutorial for learning R?

Answer 1

Some useful R links (find out the link that suits you):

Intro:

• for R basics http://cran.r-project.org/doc/contrib/usingR.pdf
• for data manipulation http://had.co.nz/plyr/plyr-intro-090510.pdf
• http://portal.stats.ox.ac.uk/userdata/ruth/APTS2012/APTS.html

with a focus on economics:

• lecture notes with R code http://www.econ.uiuc.edu/~econ472/e-Tutorial.html
• A brief guide to R and Economics http://people.su.se/~ma/R_intro/R_intro.pdf

Graphics: plots, maps, etc.:

• tutorial with info on plots http://cran.r-project.org/doc/contrib/Rossiter-RIntro-ITC.pdf
• a graph gallery of R plots and charts with supporting code http://addictedtor.free.fr/graphiques/
• A tutorial for Lattice http://osiris.sunderland.ac.uk/~cs0her/Statistics/UsingLatticeGraphicsInR.htm
• Ggplot R graphics http://had.co.nz/ggplot2/
• Ggplot Vs Lattice @ http://had.co.nz/ggplot/vs-lattice.html
• Multiple tutorials for using ggplot2 and Lattice http://learnr.wordpress.com/tag/ggplot2/
• Google Charts with R http://www.iq.harvard.edu/blog/sss/archives/2008/04/google_charts_f_1.shtml
• Introduction to using RGoogleMaps @ http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/RgoogleMaps/vignettes/RgoogleMaps-intro.pdf
• Thematic Maps with R http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1260965/developing-geographic-thematic-maps-with-r
• geographic maps in R http://smartdatacollective.com/Home/22052

GUIs:

• Poor Man GUI for R http://wiener.math.csi.cuny.edu/pmg/
• R Commander is a robust GUI for R http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox/Misc/Rcmdr/installation-notes.html
• JGR is a Java-based GUI for R http://jgr.markushelbig.org/Screenshots.html

Time series & finance:

• a good beginner’s tutorial for Time Series http://www.stat.pitt.edu/stoffer/tsa2/index.html
• Interesting time series packages in R http://robjhyndman.com/software

• advanced time series in R http://www.wise.xmu.edu.cn/2007summerworkshop/download/Advanced%20Topics%20in%20Time%20Series%20Econometrics%20Using%20R1_ZongwuCAI.pdf

• provides a great analysis and visualization framework for quantitative trading http://www.quantmod.com/

• Guide to Credit Scoring using R http://cran.r-project.org/doc/contrib/Sharma-CreditScoring.pdf
• an Open Source framework for Financial Analysis http://www.rmetrics.org/

Data / text mining:

• A Data Mining tool in R http://rattle.togaware.com/
• An online e-book for Data Mining with R http://www.liaad.up.pt/~ltorgo/DataMiningWithR/
• Introduction to the Text Mining package in R http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/tm/vignettes/tm.pdf

Other statistical techniques:

• Quick-R http://www.statmethods.net/
• annotated guides for a variety of models http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/r/dae/default.htm
• Social Network Analysis http://www.r-project.org/conferences/useR-2008/slides/Bojanowski.pdf

Editors:

• Komodo Edit R editor http://www.sciviews.org/SciViews-K/index.html
• Tinn-R makes for a good R editor http://www.sciviews.org/Tinn-R/
• An Eclipse plugin for R @ http://www.walware.de/goto/statet
• Instructions to install StatET in Eclipse http://www.splusbook.com/Rintro/R_Eclipse_StatET.pdf
• RStudio http://rstudio.org/

Interfacing w/ other languages / software:

• to embed R data frames in Excel via multiple approaches http://learnr.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/export-data-frames-to-multi-worksheet-excel-file/
• provides a tool to make R usable from Excel http://www.statconn.com/
• Connect to MySQL from R http://erikvold.com/blog/index.cfm/2008/8/20/how-to-connect-to-mysql-with-r-in-wndows-using-rmysql
• info about pulling data from SAS, STATA, SPSS, etc. http://www.statmethods.net/input/importingdata.html
• Latex http://www.stat.uni-muenchen.de/~leisch/Sweave/
• R2HTML http://www.feferraz.net/en/P/R2HTML

Blogs, newsletters, etc.:

• A very informative blog http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/
• A blog aggregator for posts about R http://www.r-bloggers.com/
• R mailing lists http://www.r-project.org/mail.html
• R newsletter (old) http://cran.r-project.org/doc/Rnews/
• R journal (current) http://journal.r-project.org/

Other / uncategorized: (as of yet)

• Web Scraping in R http://www.programmingr.com/content/webscraping-using-readlines-and-rcurl
• a very interesting list of packages that is seriously worth a look http://www.omegahat.org/
• Commercial versions of R @ http://www.revolutionanalytics.com/
• Red R for R tasks http://code.google.com/p/r-orange/
• KNIME for R (worth a serious look) http://www.knime.org/introduction/screenshots

Answer 2

If I had to choose one thing, make sure that you read "The R Inferno".

There are many good resources on the R homepage, but in particular, read "An Introduction to R" and "The R Language Definition".

Answer 3

Quick-R can be a good place to start.

A little bit data mining oriented R and Data Mining resources: Examples and Case Studies and R Reference Card for Data Mining.

Answer 4

• If you like learning through videos, I collated a list of R training videos.
• I also prepared a general post on learning R with suggestions on books, online manuals, blogs, videos, user interfaces, and more.

Answer 5

Try IPSUR, Introduction to Probability and Statistics Using R. It's a free book, free in the GNU sense of the word.

http://ipsur.r-forge.r-project.org/book/index.php

It's definitely open source - on the download page you can download the LaTeX source or the lyx source used to generate this.

Answer 6

If you're an economist/econometrician then Grant Farnworth's paper on using R is indispensable and is available on CRAN at: http://cran.r-project.org/doc/contrib/Farnsworth-EconometricsInR.pdf

Answer 7

One resource is 'Some hints for the R beginner' at http://www.burns-stat.com/pages/Tutor/hints_R_begin.html

Answer 8

The official guides are pretty nice; check out http://cran.r-project.org/manuals.html . There is also a lot of contributed documentation there.

Answer 9

I have written a document that is freely available at my website and on CRAN. See the linked page:

icebreakeR

The datasets that are used in the document are also linked from that page. Feedback is welcome and appreciated!

Andrew

Answer 10

If you have experience in other languages, these "R Rosetta Stone" videos may be useful:

1. Python
2. MATLAB
3. SQL

These are all included in the video list added by Jeromy, so big +1 for his list.

Answer 11

After you learn the basics, I find the following sites very useful:

1. R-bloggers.
2. Subscribing to the Stack overflow R tag.

Answer 12

The R project website has lots of manuals to start, and I suggest you the Nabble R forum and the R-bloggers site as well.

Answer 13

I liked these lectures: Statistical Aspects of Data Mining. The lecturer is solving example problems using R.

Answer 14

If you already know another programming language, these notes may help point out some of the ways R might surprise you.

Answer 15

If you are coming from a SAS or SPSS background, check out:

http://sites.google.com/site/r4statistics/

This is the companion site to the book, R for SAS and SPSS Users by Robert Muenchen and a free version of the book can be found here.

Answer 16

There are some very good learning materials here: http://scc.stat.ucla.edu/mini-courses/materials-from-past-mini-courses/spring-2009-mini-course-materials/

Answer 17

One more: R bloggers has many posts with tutorials materials:

http://www.r-bloggers.com/?s=tutorial

Answer 18

Look for R Users Groups in your area. They are growing around the world.

http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/local-r-groups.html

If you don't have one then help get one started. I'm sure you will be able to find like minded interested folks.

As for helpful links the Dallas R Users Group has a nice list.

http://www.meetup.com/Dallas-R-Users-Group/pages/R_Helpful_Links/

Answer 19

A large number of short videos that cover a lot of useful tasks with R (91 videos as of March 2013): http://www.twotorials.com/

Here's a nice new interactive online tutorial on the basics of R: http://tryr.codeschool.com/