Introduction to R

Course leader: Eilis Hannon

E.J.Hannon@exeter.ac.uk

These materials are based on those developed by Software Carpentry. Due to time restrictions I do not plan on working through all the lessons but if you wish to continue independently please visit the website.

Why R?

There a number of reasons researchers use R:

• it’s free, well-documented, and runs almost everywhere
• it has a large (and growing) user base among scientists
• it has a large library of external packages available for performing diverse tasks
• it is a gateway into other programming languages

Before we get started it is helpful to think why you want to use R and what aspects of your research you think it will help you with.