Data Visualization with R
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Reminder! The final deadline for all assignments other than the final project is Tuesday, April 29 at 11:59 PM (details)

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advice (11)
course details (5)
FAQs (11)
feedback (1)
getting started (4)

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Date Title Categories
April 23, 2025 at 7:43 PM Final deadlines for things
course details
April 23, 2025 at 7:41 PM What's next?
  • Policy analytics concentration and certificate
  • Program Evaluation
  • Comparative Public Administration
advice
April 23, 2025 at 7:12 PM Class website future
course details
April 23, 2025 at 6:32 PM Weeks 13 and 14 tips and FAQs
  • Sometimes the colors in the viridis palettes are too dark, neon, pale, or light—can I adjust those?
  • Some of the words in my word frequency/tf-idf plot were out of order—how can I fix that?
  • Cleaning up text is always specific and specialized
FAQs
April 15, 2025 at 9:21 PM LLMs
advice
April 15, 2025 at 1:50 PM Weeks 11 and 12 tips and FAQs
  • Do people use Plotly and Quarto dashboards in the real world?
  • My plot didn’t translate perfectly to ggplotly—why?
  • I’m bored with ggplot’s default colors and/or viridis—how can I use other color palettes?
  • How many decimal points should I use when I’m working with latitude and longitude?
  • Can I use geom_label_repel() with maps?
  • Can I use a heatmap on a map?
  • I tried to make a map and countries are missing—why?
  • I tried to make a map of just Europe and it includes more than just Europe?
  • Saving data that takes a long time to make
FAQs
March 31, 2025 at 4:21 PM Two layout-related tips for fancier plots and documents
  • Extra space in {patchwork}
  • Use the margins
advice
March 31, 2025 at 1:12 PM Weeks 9 and 10 tips and FAQs
  • How do I include a separate image in my document?
  • I have numbers like 20000 and want them formatted with commas like 20,000. Can I do that automatically?
  • How can I get month and weekday names or abbreviations for dates?
  • Can I get these automatic month and day names in non-English languages?
  • The importance of layer order
FAQs
March 17, 2025 at 5:23 PM No more answer keys
course details
March 17, 2025 at 2:41 PM Mini project 1 feedback
  • Warnings and messages
  • ALL CAPS
  • Figure in the document doesn’t match the standalone image
  • Sorting and ordering
  • Unbalanced facets
  • Overlapping text
  • Commas
FAQs feedback
March 10, 2025 at 6:16 PM Weeks 7 and 8 tips and FAQs
  • I tried to knit my document and got an error about duplicate chunk labels. Why?
  • I tried calculating something with sum() or cor() and R gave me NA instead of a number. Why?
  • I want my bars to be sorted in my plot. How can I control their order?
  • My data has full US state names but I want to use abbreviations (or regions). Is there a way to automatically convert from names to something else?
FAQs
February 26, 2025 at 9:46 PM Time to think about mini project 1!
course details
February 26, 2025 at 3:05 PM Slow down, simplify and do small things
advice
February 26, 2025 at 1:19 PM Tips for debugging and cleaning broken code
  • Reformat the code
  • Run the code incrementally
advice
February 26, 2025 at 12:21 PM A few quick general R tips
  • Talking about packages and functions
  • Nicer {ggplot2} documentation
  • The tidyverse package shortcut
  • Chunk labels
  • Code style
FAQs
February 25, 2025 at 10:13 PM Weeks 5 and 6 tips and FAQs
  • Installing vs. using packages
  • What do Quarto documents look like in real life? Can they be used for real things like reports?
  • I made a bunch of changes to my plot with theme() but when I used ggsave(), none of them actually saved. Why?
  • In chapter 22, Wilke talks about tables—is there a way to make pretty tables with R?
  • Why isn’t the example code using data = whatever and mapping = aes() in ggplot() anymore? Do we not have to use argument names?
  • Double encoding and excessive legends
  • Legends are cool, but I’ve read that directly labeling things can be better. Is there a way to label things without a legend?
  • My histogram bars are too wide / too narrow / not visible. How do I fix that?
FAQs
February 11, 2025 at 9:37 PM Make RStudio your own
  • Change the theme
  • Don’t save the workspace when closing
  • Turn on rainbow parentheses
  • Turn on color previews
  • Turn on a code margin
  • Change the panel layout and add more columns
  • Bonus: Positron!
advice
February 10, 2025 at 1:41 PM Weeks 3 and 4 tips and FAQs
  • Is there some sort of guide for knowing which chart type can go with different kinds of data?
  • Why are my axis labels all crowded and on top of each other? How do I fix that?
  • How can I add a line break to the text in my plot?
  • How can I control the dimensions of my figures?
  • What’s the difference between geom_bar() and geom_col()?
  • What’s the difference between read_csv() vs. read.csv()?
  • Why does R keep yelling at me with warnings and messages?
  • How can I hide warnings and messages?
  • Why did we need to group and summarize before making the Lord of the Rings plots? I didn’t and the plot still worked
  • Why did we need to group a second time when calculating the proportions for the heatmap?
  • Why do I keep getting messages like summarise() has grouped output by 'BLAH' when using group_by() and summarize()?
FAQs
January 29, 2025 at 5:25 PM Week 2 FAQs
  • Why do you use ✓s for grades?
  • Why does # mean both headings and code comments?
  • I will never do anything with graphic design—why did we have to learn these principles?
  • How does CRAP relate to other things like the Gestalt Principles?
  • Will following CRAP lead to the same final designs?
  • Does CRAP only work for single-page things like graphs and posters? Or does it work for reports and books?
  • I noticed Illustrator isn’t free for GSU students anymore. Are there other graphics editors?
  • Is there a way to check that my color palettes are accessible if I’m not using a premade one?
FAQs
January 29, 2025 at 5:03 PM Making cleaner, nicer Quarto documents
  • Render often
  • Check for broken code chunks
  • Check that your text looks okay
  • Don’t install packages in your document
  • Clean up warnings and messages
  • Global chunk options
  • Fancy document settings
  • Chunk names
advice
January 29, 2025 at 4:43 PM Week 1 tips and FAQs
  • What’s the difference between R Markdown and Quarto?
  • Rendered document format for iCollege
  • Why does it matter where we put files like cars.csv?
  • How does group_by() work? Why did we have to group by class and not cty and class?
  • How do we know which type of graph to use for different types of data?
  • Can we use ChatGPT? Can you even tell if we do?
  • Do you have any tips for remembering all the different functions we’re learning? There are so many!
FAQs
January 29, 2025 at 3:12 PM Getting help more efficiently
  • Use Slack in public
  • High resolution questions
  • Unanswered questions
  • Use Slack threads
  • Calendly + Webex appointments
advice
January 29, 2025 at 1:56 PM Zeroes and ✓−s in the gradebook
course details
January 13, 2025 at 12:38 PM Pre-class FAQs
  • Can I reach out if I have questions?
  • How hard will it be to reach you? Will you have regular office hours?
  • How much time should I expect to spend on this class?
  • Will we cover {X}?
  • I don’t have a background in anything related to PMAP (public management and policy)—will I be lost?
FAQs
January 13, 2025 at 12:32 PM Copy, paste, and tweak
advice
January 13, 2025 at 12:14 PM Building community
  • Class community
  • Online community
advice
January 13, 2025 at 11:52 AM The 30-minute rule and how to ask for help
advice
January 13, 2025 at 11:50 AM First day of class!
getting started
January 8, 2025 at 11:46 PM Announcements and updates
getting started
January 8, 2025 at 10:12 PM Important R stuff
getting started
January 8, 2025 at 9:34 PM Welcome to class!
getting started
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Content 2025 by Andrew Heiss
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