R For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 14

Summarizing Data

In This Chapter

Using statistical measures to describe your variables

Using convenience functions to summarize variables and data frames

Comparing two groups

It’s time to get down to the core business of R: statistics! Because R is designed to do just that, you can apply most common statistical techniques with a single command. In general, these commands are very well documented both in the Help files and on the web. If you need more advanced methods or to implement cutting-edge research, very often there’s a package for that, and many of these packages come with a book filled with examples.

It may seem rather odd that it takes us 14 chapters to come to the core business of R. Well, it isn’t. The difficult part is very often getting the data in the right format. After you’ve done that, R allows you to carry out the planned analyses rather easily. To see just how easy it is, read on.

R allows you to do just about anything you want, even if the analysis you carry out doesn’t make sense at all. R gives you the correct calculation, but that’s not necessarily ...