Sessions

Graphical Data Analysis

Graphical visualisation of data can play a key part in research. Following the data collection stage, one of the first steps in a research project should be an exploration of the data to check assumptions, and identify possible patterns or trends. Here, alongside the appropriate descriptive statistics, plotting data in different ways can be very informative. In this workshop we will focus mainly on the initial exploratory stage of a research project. We will look at how to generate and interpret a number of different plots and diagrams using the R statistical package, with an emphasis on the ggplot2 package. The techniques covered can also be applied in the later stages of research when preparing print-ready materials or presentation slides. We will look at graphing and plotting solutions for both numerical data and text corpora to demonstrate techniques applicable to a variety of research situations. No experience with R necessary.