What Be a Pirate's Favorite Stats Package?
GET R
- Download R. It's free, and everybody's doing it. Stata doesn't have to know. RStudio offers some cool tricks over and above the base install of R, like in-application R code editing, GUI package management, and graphics viewing.
BOOKS
- R for Stata Users. A book by Robert Muenchen and Joseph Hilbe introducing Stata users to the R package. It provides step-by-step guides to reproducing common Stata commands in R. Amazon.
- Introductory Statistics with R. Peter Dalgaard explains how to use R, starting with the very basics. Covers a lot of the same ground as R for Stata Users, but without assumed knowledge of Stata. Amazon.
- ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis. A book by
ggplot2 developer Hadley Wickham. The definitive introduction to ggplot2, the definitive graphical language for R. Online documentation for the package is here. Amazon.
- Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models. A book by Andrew Gelman and Jennifer Hill on MLM/HLM using R and BUGS (Bayesian inference Using Gibbs Sampling). Long and dense, but full of good stuff. Amazon.
WEB RESOURCES
- Quick-R. A site devoted to quick introductions to common statistical methods in R.
- R Seek. An online equivalent to
? and help() searching in R.
- Andrew Gelman's Homepage. Full of useful R tidbits.
- R Graphics. A guide to the package
RGraphics for the less ggplot2 inclined.
BAYESIAN STATISTICS
- Introduction to Applied Bayesian Statistics and Estimation for Social Scientists. Scott Lynch's introduction to Bayesian statistics. Written by a sociologist for social scientists. Amazon.
- "Bayesian Analysis for Sociologists." An article by Bruce Western in Sociological Methods & Research. Sage (Paywall) Link