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Using R at Grattan Institute

Welcome!

This guide is designed for everyone who uses - or would like to use - R at Grattan Institute.

The goal of this guide is to make it easy - even fun! - to use R at Grattan, whether you’re doing analysis or reviewing someone else’s analysis.

The guide does two main things:

  1. Sets out some guidelines and good practices when using R at Grattan.
  2. Shows you how to use R to undertake some of the analytical tasks you’re likely to undertake at Grattan.

As a guide to using R, this website is helpful but incomplete. We can’t possibly cover - or anticipate - all the skills you might need to know. If you make it to the end of this guide and want to learn more, start by reading R for Data Science by Hadley Wickham and Garrett Grolemund. It’s free, and it is very good.

Because the guide is intended for everyone who uses R at Grattan, there may be some material that is too basic for more experienced users, or material that goes over the heads of beginners. That’s OK - just skip those bits for now.

Any complaints or comments about this guide can be sent to Will or James, respectively.

The book uses the following five notations/highlights to help you understand whats going on:1

Important: this is a key bit of information.

Learn more: links to resources

Note: highlight this point, put it away somewhere safe.

Warning: this is an area where a few people – including the authors – trip up.

Caution: steer clear, don’t do this!