Most of this book deals with data analysis with R. This chapter is intended to provide an overview of what data analysis means and what the optimal methods of analysis are. In other words, it provides a holistic overview of how to understand the characteristics of a dataset and how to visualize the information at a glance before pursuing more in-depth analytical methods.
When you first receive a dataset for analysis, it is helpful to get a sense of the high-level characteristics of the data. This generally ...