R help - Jul 2010 - Introductory statistics and introduction to R

Hi,

I have a bright, diligent second-year graduate student who wants to 
learn statistics and R and will, in effect, be taking a tutorial from me 
on these subjects. (If you've seen some of my questions on this list, 
please don't laugh.) As an undergrad he majored in philosophy, so this 
will be his first foray into computer programming and statistics.

I'm thinking of having him use "Introductory Statistics with R" by
Peter
Dalgaard, but I'm unable to tell if the book requires calculus. I don't 
think this student knows calculus, so this would be a deal breaker. Can 
someone tell me if my student can get through this book starting out 
with just knowledge of algebra?

Also, do you have other suggestions for texts, manuals, web sites, etc. 
that would introduce statistics and R simultaneously?

Thanks,

     Marsh Feldman

Dear Marsh,

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 10:46 AM, Marsh Feldman <MarshFeldman at cox.net>
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have a bright, diligent second-year graduate student who wants to learn
> statistics and R and will, in effect, be taking a tutorial from me on these
> subjects. (If you've seen some of my questions on this list, please
don't
> laugh.) As an undergrad he majored in philosophy, so this will be his first
> foray into computer programming and statistics.
>
> I'm thinking of having him use "Introductory Statistics with
R" by Peter
> Dalgaard, but I'm unable to tell if the book requires calculus. I
don't
> think this student knows calculus, so this would be a deal breaker. Can
> someone tell me if my student can get through this book starting out with
> just knowledge of algebra?
Short answer: Yes.  The long answer is also Yes.

(Not really, it depends on what you mean by 'get through'.)
>
> Also, do you have other suggestions for texts, manuals, web sites, etc.
that
> would introduce statistics and R simultaneously?
Have you seen this?

http://rwiki.sciviews.org/doku.php?id=books:intrstat

Good luck,
Jay


***************************************************
G. Jay Kerns, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Mathematics & Statistics
Youngstown State University
Youngstown, OH 44555-0002 USA
Office: 1035 Cushwa Hall
Phone: (330) 941-3310 Office (voice mail)
-3302 Department
-3170 FAX
VoIP: gjkerns at ekiga.net
E-mail: gkerns at ysu.edu
http://people.ysu.edu/~gkerns/

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 10:46 AM, Marsh Feldman <MarshFeldman at cox.net>
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have a bright, diligent second-year graduate student who wants to learn
> statistics and R and will, in effect, be taking a tutorial from me on these
> subjects. (If you've seen some of my questions on this list, please
don't
> laugh.) As an undergrad he majored in philosophy, so this will be his first
> foray into computer programming and statistics.
>
> I'm thinking of having him use "Introductory Statistics with
R" by Peter
> Dalgaard, but I'm unable to tell if the book requires calculus. I
don't
> think this student knows calculus, so this would be a deal breaker. Can
> someone tell me if my student can get through this book starting out with
> just knowledge of algebra?
>
> Also, do you have other suggestions for texts, manuals, web sites, etc.
that
> would introduce statistics and R simultaneously?
>
You could give him this list of free online documents:

   http://cran.r-project.org/other-docs.html

and have him try a few and pick the one he likes best.  The one by
Owen, for example, is quite good and he could start with that.