Resources

Templates

I will upload .Rmd templates here that you can use to work on your assignments in R.

For the weekly labs, you can use the corresponding files in the Content page as templates.

• Response paper template

Coding

Accessing software

• Installation instructions for R and RStudio in different platforms:

• Posit Cloud. Also accessible with the icon in the navigation bar

• List of computer labs on campus

Tips and resources

• The Data Analysis Support Hub at the library has video tutorials and lets you schedule consultations to get help with assignments in R

• Learn R within the R console using Swirl

• R Markdown cheat sheet

• RStudio cheat sheets to learn about commonly used packages in the tidyverse

• The DeclareDesign library of research designs may be useful to get started on lab assignments

• Project oriented workflow to keep track of your work in R

• Try the here package for relative path management

Reading

I do my best to assign as little reading as possible. Still, some of the readings are full of technical terms, tables, figures, and math. I expect our class discussions to start from the main findings of a study and then work backwards to understand how a study was conducted and why it was done so in a certain why.

This means that you may have to pay extra attention to things that you tend to ignore when reading for other courses. My advice is to try to read strategically. I find this guide by Amelia Hoover Green useful.

I find myself at odds about assigning readings with a lot of math. On the one hand, I find equations useful to talk about general design ideas that we can then translate to specific research contexts. On the other hand, I got into political science because I wanted to avoid math as much as possible (it didn’t work), which means I have to fight my natural inclination of skipping all the formulas formulae formulæ.

Over time, I have learned that the problem is not so much the math, but the language attached to it. Academic articles often expect the audience to be an insider that already knows how to read the math, so they skip the plain language explanation. I find it useful to try to rewrite equations in words as I take notes, but that takes time that you may not have.

I plan to use some of our class time clarifying important quantities of with words and coding examples.