R Glossary – David Lorenz, January 2017

Basic R commands for data analysis

Version 1.4, January 2017

David Lorenz
English Department, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

PART I – Objects, work space, working directory

Basic maths
> 1+1!! ! # addition
[1] 2
> 6/2!! ! # division
[1] 3
> 2*10+5! ! # multiplication and division before addition and subtraction
[1] 25
> 2*(10+5)! ! # bracketing
[1] 30
> 3^2!! ! # exponentiation!
[1] 9
> sqrt(9)! ! # square root
[1] 3
> round(10/3, digits=2)!! # rounding
[1] 3.333
> abs(-5)! ! # absolute value
[1] 5

Creating ‘objects’
> x <- 43! ! ! ! # assigning a value; x is now an object (also
! ! ! ! ! works the other way around: 43 -> x).
> venus <- "evening star"
> x
[1] 43
> venus
[1] "evening star"
> y <- c(1:5)! ! !
> y
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 ! ! ! # ‘c’ is for “concatenate” and is used to create
! ! ! ! ! sets (here a sequence from 1 to 5).
> elements <- c("fire", "earth", "air", "water")
> elements
[1] "fire" "earth" "air" "water"

Work space and working directory

The work space is the set of objects currently defined.
> ls()! # shows the work space
> rm(x)! # deletes the object x

The working directory is the directory on your computer that R currently ‘works’ in. (For how to
save items there, see at the end of ‘Data frames’.)
> getwd()! # shows the current working directory
> setwd(dir=”~/Desktop”)! # change the working directory (here to Desktop;
! ! ! ! ! the path given has to be an existing folder).

1
 R Glossary – David Lorenz, January 2017

PART II – Data frames, data types

The following examples assume a data set with the variables: variant (‘short’, ‘long’), duration
(numeric), gender, age, sentence_type – replace these with the variables of your own data set.

Data frames
Reading files works best with .csv format (‘comma-separated values’). Excel tables can be saved
as .csv (choose UTF-8 encoding; separator can also be “;” or tab stop). Alternatively, read.table()
reads tables in .txt format.
=> RStudio lets you read in data with “Import Dataset” in the “Environment” panel – always note
the filename in your R script!
> read.csv(file.choose())! # reads a .csv file (which you have to select);

> read.csv(file="~/Desktop/mydata.csv")!
! # reads the file in the given URL (this must be an existing file on your
! computer);

> read.csv(file="~/Desktop/mydata.csv", sep="\t", header=F)

! # reads the .csv file as separated by tab stop, and with no header row
! (i.e. column headings); for data separated by “;” use sep=”;” or the
! function read.csv2();

> mydata <- read.csv(file="~/Desktop/mydata.csv")

! ! # reads the .csv file as above, and assigns a variable to it. Now
> mydata! # shows the data set. This is a ‘data frame’:

> is.data.frame(mydata)
[1] TRUE

> nrow(mydata)! # shows number of rows;

> ncol(mydata)! # shows number of columns;
> colnames(mydata)# shows the names of the columns;
> colnames(mydata)[3] # shows the name of the third column;
> colnames(mydata)[3] <- “variant” # changes the name of the third column to
! ! ! ! ! ! “variant”;
> head(mydata)! # shows the first 6 rows of the data frame;
> str(mydata)! # shows the structure of the data frame;
> mydata[23,]! # shows the 23rd row; the format for selection is:
! ! ! dataframe[row(s) , columns]
> mydata[,3]! # shows the 3rd column;
> mydata[23,3]! # shows the value in the 23rd row of the 3rd column;
> mydata[c(1:10),3]! # rows 1-10, 3rd column;
> mydata$variant! # shows the column with the heading “variant”;
> mydata[mydata$variant == ”short” ,]! # all rows in which the value for
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ‘variant’ is “short”.
> mydata[mydata$duration >= 10 ,]! # all rows in which the value for
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ‘duration’ is greater or equal 10.
> mydata[mydata$duration <= 10 ,]! ! # all rows in which the value for
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ‘duration’ is smaller or equal 10.
> mydata$newcolumn <- “x”! # adds a column ‘newcolumn’ to the data frame,
! ! ! ! ! with the value “x” in every row;
> mydata[mydata$variant==”short”,]$newcolumn <- “y”
! ! ! ! # sets the value for ‘newcolumn’ to “y” in rows in which
! ! ! ! the value for ‘variant’ is “short”.
2
 R Glossary – David Lorenz, January 2017

> write.csv(file="~/Desktop/mydata.csv")
! ! ! ! # writes the data frame to a .csv file in the specified
! ! ! ! file path. (!Note: if this is an existing file, it
! ! ! ! will overwrite it!)
> save(mydata, file="~/Desktop/myworkspace.RData")
! ! ! ! # saves the data to a workspace file (.RData) (!Note:
! ! ! ! if this is an existing file, it will overwrite it!)
> save(“mydata”, “elements”, file="~/Desktop/myworkspace.RData")
! ! ! ! # saves the listed items to the specified file;
> save.image(file="~/Desktop/myworkspace.RData")
! ! ! ! # saves the entire work space to the specified file.
> load("~/Desktop/myworkspace.RData")
! ! ! ! # loads the data in the specified file. (You can also
! ! ! ! just double-click the file.)

Data types
Columns in a data frame are called ‘vectors’; a vector must contain data of only one type. The main
types are ‘factor’, ‘numeric’ and ‘character’; factors may be ordered.

> is.numeric(57)! ! ! # numbers are numeric

[1] TRUE
> is.character("blablabla")! # ‘words’ are character strings
[1] TRUE
> class(mydata$duration)! # gives out the data type of this vector

> mydata$variant <- as.factor(mydata$variant)

! ! ! ! ! # turns the vector (column) into a ‘factor’;
! ! ! ! ! likewise: as.numeric(), as.character().
> levels(mydata$variant)! # only factors have levels.
[1] "long" "medium" “short”
> mean(mydata$duration)!!
> sd(mydata$duration)
> sum(mydata$duration) !! # only numeric vectors have a mean, standard
! ! ! ! ! deviation, sum, etc.
> summary(mydata$duration) ! # shows the central tendency measures all at once.
! ! ! ! ! (Or token counts if it is a factor.)

PART III – Data inspection and analysis

See the textbooks at ‘Further reading’ (PART IV) for detail on how to apply and validate statistical
tests and models!

Categorical data:
> xtabs(~ variant + gender, mydata)!!
! ! ! # shows a contingency table of ‘variant’ by the variable
! ! ! ‘gender’ in the data frame ‘mydata’ (the variables must be
! ! ! columns in the data frame).

> prop.table(xtabs(~ variant + gender, mydata), 1)

! ! ! # shows a table of proportions (rather than raw frequencies),
! ! ! such that the rows add up to 1;
3
 R Glossary – David Lorenz, January 2017

> prop.table(xtabs(~ variant + gender, mydata), 2)

! ! ! # a proportions table – columns add up to 1.

> chisq.test(mydata$variant, mydata$gender)

! ! ! # runs a Chi-Squared test for the specified variables (which
! ! ! must be categorical). ‘chisq.test()’ can also be run
! ! ! directly on a table of numbers, e.g. chisq.test(xtabs(~
! ! ! variant + gender, mydata)).

> chisq.test(mydata$variant, mydata$gender)$observed! # observed frequencies;

> chisq.test(mydata$variant, mydata$gender)$expected! # expected frequencies;
> chisq.test(mydata$variant, mydata$gender)$residuals
! ! ! # residuals (chi value for each cell in the table).!

> fisher.test(mydata$variant, mydata$gender)

! ! ! # runs a Fisher’s exact test for the specified variables
! ! ! (which must be categorical).

A numeric and a categorical variable:

> tapply(mydata$duration, mydata$gender, mean)
! ! ! # with a numeric and a categorical variable: shows the mean of
! ! ! the numeric variable ‘duration’ for each level of the
! ! ! categorical variable ‘gender’ - “mean” can be replaced by
! ! ! “sum”, “sd”, etc. (If the data contains NAs, add na.rm=T )

> boxplot(mydata$duration)! ! # creates a boxplot of ‘duration’ (numeric);

> boxplot(duration ~ gender, mydata)!
! ! ! # creates boxplots of ‘duration’ (numeric) for !
each level of
! ! ! ‘gender’ (categorical). Many additional parameters can be
! ! ! set, see the help function:
> ?boxplot

> shapiro.test(mydata$duration)! # Shapiro-Wilk test of normal distribution

! ! ! ! ! ! (if p<0.05, the data is NOT normally
! ! ! ! ! ! distributed).
> plot(density(mydata$duration))
! ! ! # A density plot of the distribution of the ‘duration’ values;
! ! ! normal distribution yields a symmetric bell curve;

> abline(v=mean(mydata$duration), lty="dashed")

! ! ! # adds a (dashed) line at the mean of the ‘duration’ values.
> t.test(duration ~ gender, mydata, paired=F)!
! ! ! # An unpaired t-test of ‘duration‘ by ‘gender’ (set paired=T
! ! ! for paired data).

> wilcox.test(duration ~ gender, mydata, paired=F)

! ! ! # A Wilcoxon rank-sum (Mann-Whitney U) test of ‘duration‘ by
! ! ! ‘gender’; set paired=T for the Wilcoxon signed-rank test.

> lm(duration ~ variant, mydata)

! ! ! # A linear regression model (for more than two sets:
! ! ! mydata$variant has three levels)

> summary(lm(duration ~ variant, mydata))

! ! ! # Coefficients of the linear regression.
4
 R Glossary – David Lorenz, January 2017

> aov(duration ~ variant, mydata))

> summary(aov(duration ~ variant, mydata))
! ! ! # Analysis of Variance of ‘duration’ by ‘variant’.

Correlation (numeric data):

> plot(mydata$age, mydata$duration)!# creates a graph of the numeric variables
! ! ! ! ! ! ‘duration’ and ‘age’;
> plot(mydata$duration ~ mydata$age)! # the same plot.
> abline(lm (mydata$duration ~ mydata$age))
! ! ! # adds the regression line to the plot.
> lm(mydata$duration ~ mydata$age)! # a linear model: the intercept and slope of
! ! ! ! ! ! the regression line.

> cor(mydata$age, mydata$duration)! # The (Pearson’s product-moment) correlation

! ! ! ! ! ! coefficient;
> cor.test(mydata$age, mydata$duration)
! ! ! # A Pearson correlation test with coefficient, p-value and
! ! ! confidence interval for the coefficient;
> cor.test(mydata$age, mydata$duration, method=”spearman”)
! ! ! # A Spearman’s rho rank correlation test (set method=”kendall”
! ! ! for Kendall’s tau test).

Multifactorial:
# Logistic regression (binary dependent variable):
> ftable(mydata$gender, mydata$sentence_type, mydata$variant)
! ! ! # a ‘flat’ table of all combinations of several factors.
> mydata$variant <- relevel(mydata$variant, “short”)
! ! ! # defines the reference level of a factor.
> mymodel <- glm(variant ~ gender + age + sentence_type, data=mydata,
family=”binomial”)
! ! ! # a logistic regression model; here ‘variant’ is the dependent
! ! ! variable, ‘gender’, ‘age’ and ‘sentence_type’ are
! ! ! independent variables. Use...
> summary(mymodel)! # ...to see the coefficients and p-values.
> anova(mymodel)! ! # Analysis of Variance of the model.

# Linear regression (numeric dependent variable):

> mylm <- lm(duration ~ sentence_type + variant, mydata)
! ! ! # a linear regression model: ‘duration’ is the dependent
! ! ! variable, ‘sentence_type’ and ‘variant’ are independent
! ! ! variables. Use...
> summary(mymodel)! # ...to see the coefficients and p-values.

5
 R Glossary – David Lorenz, January 2017

PART IV – Packages, online help, further readings

Packages
Packages are specialized ‘add-ons’ that contain useful functions for data analysis, plotting, etc.
> install.packages(“effects”)!! # installs the package ‘effects’;
> library(effects)! ! # loads the package into the library. To see all
! ! ! ! ! the functions in a package, use help():
> help(package=effects)

Some useful packages:

effects
## contains the allEffects() function that calculates estimated probabilities
from the coefficients of a logistic/linear regression model:
> allEffects(mymodel)
> plot(allEffects(mymodel)! # a graph showing the effects.

ggplot2
## contains the functions qplot() and ggplot() for creating sophisticated
graphs. See http://ggplot2.org

plyr
## Tools for splitting, applying and combining data, e.g. ddply()
> ddply(mydata, .(variant, gender), summarize, mean=mean(duration))
! ! ! # a data frame showing the mean ‘duration’ for each
! ! ! combination of ‘variant’ and ‘gender’ in ‘mydata’ (other
! ! ! measures such as sd() can be added).

rms
## “regression modeling strategies” – contains the function lrm() for logistic
regression with a few more features than glm()

swirl
## A tutorial for working with R, for beginners and advanced learners – see
http://swirlstats.com

Further readings
R and statistics textbooks for linguists:
Baayen, Harald. 2008. Analyzing Linguistics Data. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gries, Stefan Th. 2013. Statistics for Linguistics with R. 2nd edition. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter.
Johnson, Keith. 2008. Quantitative Methods in Linguistics. Malden: Blackwell.
Levshina, Natalia. 2015. How to do Linguistics with R: Data exploration and Statistical Analysis.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

General introductions to R available online:

Burns, Patrick. Impatient R. http://www.burns-stat.com/documents/tutorials/impatient-r/
Chang, Winston. Cookbook for R. http://www.cookbook-r.com
Kohl, Matthias. 2015. Introduction to statistical data analysis with R. http://bookboon.com/en/
introduction-to-statistical-data-analysis-with-r-ebook [also available in German.]

6
 R Glossary – David Lorenz, January 2017

Navarro, Daniel. 2015. Learning Statistics with R. http://health.adelaide.edu.au/psychology/ccs/

teaching/lsr/
Owen, W. J. 2010. The R Guide. Version 2.5. http://www.mathcs.richmond.edu/~wowen/
TheRGuide.pdf

Introductory R books:
Adler, Joseph. 2010. R in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media.
Crawley, Michael J. 2012. The R Book, 2nd Edition. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Kabacoff, Robert I. 2011. R in Action: Data Analysis and Graphics with R. Greenwich, CT:
Manning Publications.
Teetor, Paul. 2011. R Cookbook. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media.
Verzani, John. 2014. Using R for Introductory Statistics. 2nd edition. Boca Raton: Chapman &
Hall / CRC Press.
Check the official R bibliography for more...

Online help
http://www.statmethods.net # a very good overview of the possibilities for
! ! ! ! statistics and graphics in R

http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/r/ ! # lots of useful R and statistics stuff, with

! ! ! ! ! helpful examples!

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/corpling-with-r
! ! ! ! ! # Stefan Gries' Corpus linguistics with R forum

http://www.inside-r.org ! # "A community site for R" – with overviews of functions

! ! ! ! and packages

http://stackoverflow.com # a programming/statistics forum (the site itself may

! ! ! ! not look very helpful, but online searches for stats
! ! ! ! questions often lead here...)

http://www.r-bloggers.com ! # an R forum where you will often find answers to your

! ! ! ! "How do I do this in R" questions

Citing R and R packages

R Core Team. 2016. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Vienna: The R
Foundation for Statistical Computing. URL: http://www.r-project.org
> citation()! # shows the reference for R;
> citation(“effects”)! # shows the reference for a package (here: “effects”).