Appendix. afterword: Into the rabbit hole

We’ve covered a broad range of topics in the book, including major ones like the R development environment, data management, traditional statistical models, and statistical graphics. We’ve also covered hidden gems like resampling statistics, missing values imputation, and interactive graphics. The great (or perhaps infuriating) thing about R is that there’s always more to learn.

R is a large, robust, and evolving statistical platform and programming language. With so many new packages, frequent updates, and new directions, how can a user stay current? Happily, many websites support this active community and provide coverage of platform and package changes, new methodologies, and a wealth of tutorials. I’ve listed some of my favorite sites below.

The R Project (http://www.r-project.org/)

The official R website and your first stop for all things R. The site includes extensive documentation, including An Introduction to R The R Language Definition, Writing R Extensions, R Data Import/Export, R Installation and Administration, and The R FAQ.

The R Journal (http://journal.r-project.org/)

A freely accessible refereed journal containing articles on the R project and contributed packages.

R Bloggers (http://www.r-bloggers.com/)

A central hub (blog aggregator) collecting content from bloggers writing about R. Contains new articles daily. I’m addicted to it.

Planet R (http://planetr.stderr.org)

Another good site-aggregator, including information from a wide range of sources. Updated daily.

CRANberries (http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/cranberries/)

A site that aggregates information about new and updated packages, and contains links to CRAN for each.

R Graph Gallery (http://addictedtor.free.fr/graphiques/)

A collection of innovative graphs, along with their source code.

R Graphics Manual (http://bm2.genes.nig.ac.jp/)

A collection of R graphics from all R packages, arranged by topic, package, and function. At last count, there were 35,000+ images!

Journal of Statistical Software (http://www.jstatsoft.org/)

A freely accessible refereed journal containing articles, book reviews, and code snippets on statistical computing. Contains frequent articles about R.

Revolutions (http://blog.revolution-computing.com/)

A popular, well-organized blog, dedicated to news and information about R.

CRAN Task Views (http://cran.r-project.org/web/views/)

Task views are guides to the use of R in different academic and research fields. They include a description of the packages and methods available for a given area. Currently there are 28 task views available (see table below).

CRAN Task Views
Bayesian Inference	Machine Learning & Statistical Learning
Chemometrics and Computational Physics	Medical Image Analysis
Design, Monitoring, and Analysis of Clinical Trials	Multivariate Statistics
Clinical Trial Design, Monitoring, and Analysis	Natural Language Processing
Cluster Analysis & Finite Mixture Models	Official Statistics & Survey Methodology
Probability Distributions	Optimization and Mathematical Programming
Computational Econometrics	Analysis of Pharmacokinetic Data
Analysis of Ecological and Environmental Data	Phylogenetics, Especially Comparative Methods
Design of Experiments (DoE)	Psychometric Models and Methods
Empirical Finance	Robust Statistical Methods
Statistical Genetics	Statistics for the Social Sciences
Graphic Displays & Dynamic Graphics	Analysis of Spatial Data
gRaphical Models in R	Survival Analysis
High-Performance and Parallel Computing with R	Time Series Analysis

R-Help Main R Mailing List (https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help)

This electronic mailing list is the best place to ask questions about R. The archives are also searchable. Be sure to read the FAQ before posting questions.

Quick-R (http://www.statmethods.net)

This is my R website. It’s stocked with more than 80 brief tutorials on R topics. False modesty forbids me from saying more.

The R community is a helpful, vibrant, and exciting lot. Welcome to Wonderland.