.. _r_alternative_resources:



Alternative Resources (Tutorials)
=================================


For curious students who want to explore R beyond the course requirements:

General R & Data Science
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

- **R for Data Science (2nd Edition)**: The gold standard introduction to data science with R. Covers fundamentals, visualization, and data wrangling in one cohesive resource. No prior experience needed.
  
  https://r4ds.hadley.nz/

- **ModernDive**: Teaches confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, and regression *using* R—ideal for statistics students. Simulation-based approach.
  
  https://moderndive.com/

- **Hands-On Programming with R**: Written for non-programmers, teaches R through probability-based projects (dice, cards, slot machines). Great bridge to statistics concepts.
  
  https://rstudio-education.github.io/hopr/

ggplot2 Visualization
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

- **ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis**: The authoritative visualization guide by ggplot2's creator. Comprehensive coverage from basics to advanced customization.
  
  https://ggplot2-book.org/

- **R Graphics Cookbook**: 150+ recipes for creating specific graphs. Excellent reference when you know what visualization you want to create.
  
  https://r-graphics.org/

- **A ggplot2 Tutorial for Beautiful Plotting in R**: Extensive tutorial with 188+ example plots showing step-by-step customization.
  
  https://www.cedricscherer.com/2019/08/05/a-ggplot2-tutorial-for-beautiful-plotting-in-r/

- **The R Graph Gallery**: Hundreds of graph examples with reproducible code, organized by chart type.
  
  https://r-graph-gallery.com/

Tidyverse
~~~~~~~~~

- **Tidyverse Skills for Data Science**: Comprehensive course covering the entire tidyverse ecosystem from Johns Hopkins.
  
  https://jhudatascience.org/tidyversecourse/

- **The Tidyverse Cookbook**: Recipe-based guide with code solutions for common data tasks. Great for quick reference.
  
  https://rstudio-education.github.io/tidyverse-cookbook/

Video Content
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

- **MarinStatsLectures**: 250+ videos pairing statistical concepts with R implementation. Covers descriptive stats through regression.
  
  https://www.statslectures.com/r-stats-videos-tutorials

- **Plotting Anything with ggplot2**: 4.5-hour workshop by the ggplot2 maintainer. Originally a paid conference workshop, now free.
  
  https://youtu.be/h29g21z0a68

- **David Robinson's TidyTuesday Screencasts**: 80+ unscripted screencasts showing real-world data analysis with tidyverse. Searchable by function.
  
  https://www.rscreencasts.com/

Quick Reference
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

- **Posit Cheatsheets**: Essential 1-2 page PDFs for dplyr, ggplot2, tidyr, and more. Keep these bookmarked.
  
  https://posit.co/resources/cheatsheets/

Base R
~~~~~~

- **CRAN "An Introduction to R"**: The official manual. Canonical coverage of types, subsetting, vectorization, base graphics, and the modeling API.
  
  https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/R-intro.html

- **Deep R Programming**: Rigorous coverage of R semantics, performance, and numerical computing. Ideal after you're comfortable with basics.
  
  https://deepr.gagolewski.com/