R: Data Analysis and Visualization

Chapter 2. The Shape of Data

Welcome back! Since we now have enough knowledge about R under our belt, we can finally move on to applying it. So, join me as we jump out of the R frying pan and into the statistics fire.

Univariate data

In this chapter, we are going to deal with univariate data, which is a fancy way of saying samples of one variable—the kind of data that goes into a single R vector. Analysis of univariate data isn't concerned with the why questions—causes, relationships, or anything like that; the purpose of univariate analysis is simply to describe.

In univariate data, one variable—let's call it x—can represent categories like soy ice cream flavors, heads or tails, names of cute classmates, the roll of a die, and so on. In cases like ...