A compact, interactive 4-hour workshop for beginners to gain hands-on experience using R for data analysis and visualization. Participants will learn to navigate RStudio, understand R’s logic, explore and visualize data, and create shareable, reproducible reports.
Who is it for? Anyone curious about data—students, researchers, or professionals from any field.
Goal: Leave with the confidence to start exploring and communicating data using R.
Workshop Director: Mehrdad Samadishadlou
If you would like any additional details about the course or want to connect, I’m happy to provide more information and answer questions. Feel free to reach out to me directly at mehrdad.samadi90@gmail.com or visit my LinkedIn profile to learn more about my background.
What are you excpecting?
1) Get Ready: Installing R and RStudio
We begin by setting up the R environment and RStudio interface—the tools you’ll use for all your work in R. You’ll learn how to install both, configure your workspace, and understand where to write, run, and save your code.
2) Speak R: Console Basics and Syntax
This section introduces the “language” of R—how it reads and interprets instructions. You’ll learn how R handles numbers, text, and simple commands, and how to interact with the console to test ideas quickly. You’ll see how functions work and how R gives feedback when something goes wrong.
3) Know Your Data: Types and Structures
Here we’ll uncover how R organizes information. You’ll learn about R’s main data structures—vectors, data frames, and lists—and why each matters. Understanding these forms helps you manipulate and analyze data efficiently.
4) Tame Your Data: Importing, Cleaning, and Wrangling
This session focuses on one of the most essential skills in data science—preparing messy data for analysis. You’ll learn how to import data files, handle missing values, and reshape datasets into useful formats. We’ll discuss best practices for naming, consistency, and reproducibility.
5) See the Story: Data Exploration and Visualization
Now we turn numbers into insights. You’ll discover how to visualize relationships, patterns, and trends using R’s ggplot. We’ll explore how color, shape, and layout affect interpretation and how visualization can tell a story about your data.
6) Share Your Work: Reports with R Markdown
The final section demonstrates how to turn analysis into communication. With R Markdown, you can combine text, code, and visuals into one reproducible report. It ensures your manuscript is transparent and easy to share. You can also select the journal style you prefer and output your manuscript in the journal format in the second step.
What You’ll Walk Away With
- A working R environment on your own laptop.
- An understanding of R’s basic language and structure.
- Experience cleaning, exploring, and visualizing real data.
- A reproducible report demonstrating your new skills.
Logistics
- Duration: 4 hours (single session)
- Format: Live demo + guided hands-on exercises
- Prereqs: None—just curiosity!
- Materials: Sample datasets, exercise scripts, and slides provided