LEARNING R FOR DATA JOURNALISTS

In the seventies of the past century I was trained in using SPSS (on a main frame) for analyzing social data. But when I lost the free licence to use SPSS, I had to find an alternative. Of course spreadsheets were available but that it is not real statistics. Then I found out that R could load a GUI for SPSS. Interesting, but I learned though that R had more possibilities: packages for all kind of analysis. Second I found RStudio, a perfect GUI for the R.

But how do you get started with R, still remembering that data journalism is the goal.


Why?
5 reason for using R:
http://memeburn.com/2014/05/5-compelling-arguments-for-using-r-in-data-journalism/ 


Here is a start to learn the basics

Computerworld published a The Beginner’s Guide to R. This 30-page guide will show you how to install R, load data, run analyses, make graphs, and more.

Complete guide as PDF download: https://www.computerworld.com/article/2884322/learn-r-programming-basics-with-our-pdf.html#tk.ctw-eos

Other Resources published by Computerworld:
60+ R resources to improve your data skills: https://www.computerworld.com/article/2497464/top-r-language-resources-to-improve-your-data-skills.html

Overview: Quick R: http://www.statmethods.net/ 

And finally an intro to R coming from Kaggle: https://www.kaggle.com/hamelg/intro-to-r-index  or  http://hamelg.blogspot.com/2015/10/introduction-to-r-index.html?view=classic

Teach yourself basic R, interactive in R studio using swirl pacakge.
Swirl, an R package designed to teach you R straight from the command line. Swirl provides exercises and feedback from within your R session to help you learn in a structured, interactive way.
Swirl, more https://www.rstudio.com/online-learning/

Here is a free book covering all the basics:
Import the pdf and read this intro to R on Kindle:
https://www.r-bloggers.com/yarrr-the-pirates-guide-to-r-2/ 

Keep informed about the latest developments and follow: https://www.r-bloggers.com/