Big Magic with R: Creative Learning Beyond Fear

This talk was presented as a keynote for the 2018 Cascadia R Conference (https://cascadiarconf.com/agenda/).

Inspired by the book "Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear" by Elizabeth Gilbert, Alison talks about the five essential ingredients needed to creatively learn R and why these elements are also essential for advanced users to take their R skills to the next level. You will hear practical advice for when, where, and how to start a project in R, and how your learning can add value- both to your own knowledge and to contribute to the larger community of R learners. Along the way, she shares recommended resources and evidence-based strategies for project-based learning. Alison's background working with both new and advanced R users gives her a unique perspective on this topic.

Transcript

1. Alison Hill, Associate Professor of Pediatrics & Assistant Director
   of OHSU’s Center for Spoken Language Understanding
   @apreshill @apreshill https://alison.rbind.io/
   Slides: http://bit.ly/cascadiarconf-magic
   BIG MAGIC WITH R:
   CREATIVE LEARNING BEYOND FEAR
   

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2. 2
   This work is licensed under
   a Creative Commons
   Attribution-ShareAlike4.0
   International License.
   To view a copy of this license, visit:
   https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
   

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3. 3
   My inspiration
   today!
   Image credits:
   https://www.elizabethgilbert.com/
   

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4. 4
   Who am I?
   • Use R every day
   • Self-taught
   

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7. pre-tidyverse
   

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8. 8
   Who am I?
   • Use R every day
   • Self-taught
   • Taught > 100 MS + PhD
   students
   

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9. 9
   Who are you?
   • R curious? R beginner?
   Advanced user?
   • Use R every day? Every week?
   

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10. Do your job better
    Get a ^ job
    Why are we all here?
    better
    

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11. Courage
    Enchantment
    Permission
    Persistence
    Trust
    

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12. COURAGE
    

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13. COURAGE IS A PLAN
    

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18. TIDY COURAGE
    

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19. TIDY COURAGE
    

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20. Introduction to the Tidyverse
    By David Robinson
    https://www.datacamp.com/courses/introduction-to-the-tidyverse
    “Learn R, in R”
    http://swirlstats.com/students.html
    INTERACTIVE COURAGE
    

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21. BASE R
    COURAGE
    https://nostarch.com
    

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23. 23
    All-purpose courage
    • Package reference docs
    (usage / arguments / examples)
    • Package vignette
    • GitHub README
    • Is there an RStudio Cheatsheet?
    (https://www.rstudio.com/resources/cheatsheets/)
    • Are there Stat545 materials by Jenny Bryan?
    (http://stat545.com)
    • Is there a roundup by Mara Averick?
    (https://maraaverick.rbind.io/tags/roundups/)
    • RWeekly “R Tutorials”: https://rweekly.org/#Tutorials
    

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25. IDEAS WORDS R
    

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26. IDEAS WORDS R
    

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27. 27
    NO COURAGE, NO PLAN
    

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28. 28
    COURAGEOUS PLANNER
    

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29. ENCHANTMENT
    

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30. ENCHANTMENT IS
    THE JOY OF WORKING
    WITH CODE THAT
    JUST WORKS
    

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33. “It’s not magic; it’s code.”
    — Ben Welsh, L.A. Times Data Editor
    

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35. DO NOT JUST READ CODE*
    *Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’
    learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational
    psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58.
    

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37. ❌
    

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39. Use #comments and ?
    ?function_name
    Description
    Usage
    Arguments
    

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41. REPETITION IS POWERFUL
    

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42. IDEAS WORDS R
    

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43. IDEAS WORDS R
    

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44. 44
    ADDING ENCHANTMENT
    

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45. 45
    JUST ENOUGH ENCHANTMENT
    

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46. PERMISSION
    

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48. “Your [work] not only doesn’t
    have to be original…it also
    doesn’t have to be important.”
    —Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic
    

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49. 49
    Find projects to copy
    • RWeekly “R in the Real World”:
    https://rweekly.org/#RintheRealWorld
    • Julia Silge (Data Scientist, Stack Overflow)
    https://juliasilge.com
    • Dave Robinson (Data Scientist, DataCamp)
    http://varianceexplained.org
    • Maëlle Salmon (ROpenSci, LockeData)
    http://www.masalmon.eu
    • Lucy and Nick (Vandy biostats students)
    http://livefreeordichotomize.com
    

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52. CHOOSE
    WISELY
    

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53. NOT
    YOUR
    STYLE
    

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54. NOT
    YOUR
    PROBLEM
    

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55. NOT
    YOUR
    LEVEL
    (YET!)
    

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56. IDEAS WORDS R
    

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57. IDEAS WORDS R
    Your
    

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58. 58
    PERMISSION TO TRY FOR THIS
    

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59. 59
    PERMISSION TO FEEL LIKE THIS
    

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62. PERSISTENCE
    

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63. “For most of history
    people just made things,
    and they didn’t make
    such a big freaking deal
    about it.”
    —Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic
    

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64. Hilary Parker
    https://hilaryparker.com/2013/01/30/hilary-the-most-poisoned-baby-name-in-us-history/
    

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65. Julia Silge
    https://juliasilge.com/blog/my-baby-boomer-name/
    

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66. Monica Gerber
    http://www.monicagerber.com/2018/03/little-bit-of-monica/
    

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67. Brooke Watson
    https://blog.brooke.science/posts/the-us-of-bey/
    

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70. Problem:
    The data are in Wikipedia tables I need to scrape!
    

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71. Problem:
    The data are in Wikipedia tables I need to scrape!
    Solution:
    Learn rvest
    

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72. New Problem:
    I need to scrape the same table for all 8 series!
    

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73. New Problem:
    I need to scrape the same table for all 8 series!
    Solution:
    Add purrr
    

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76. 76
    My purrrlist
    • Jennifer Thompson’s R-Ladies Intro:
    https://github.com/jenniferthompson/RLadiesIntroT
    oPurrr
    • Jenny Bryan’s tutorial:
    https://jennybc.github.io/purrr-tutorial/
    • Charlotte Wickham’s tutorial:
    https://github.com/cwickham/purrr-tutorial
    • RStudiopurrr cheatsheat:
    https://github.com/rstudio/cheatsheets/blob/maste
    r/purrr.pdf
    • Colin Fay’s purrr blog series:
    http://colinfay.me/tags/purrr/
    • Mara Averick’s roundup of “purrr-ty posts”:
    https://maraaverick.rbind.io/2017/09/purrr-ty-posts/
    

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77. IDEAS WORDS R
    

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78. IDEAS WORDS R
    Your
    

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79. You aren’t
    doing it
    wrong
    if no one knows what you are doing
    

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80. TRUST
    

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83. 83
    Trust
    • GitHub: https://github.com
    – Open an account
    – You will need this: http://happygitwithr.com
    • Your own website
    – My recommendation (obvious, biased): use blogdown
    – You will need this:
    https://bookdown.org/yihui/blogdown/
    • A friend!
    – Make sure someone else at your code!
    – Ideas:
    • Partner up with someone in your team / lab / company
    • Find a coding partner at your local R Meet-up or R-Ladies
    group
    • Ask the #rstats twitterverse!
    

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85. https://edwinth.github.io/blog-new-things/
    

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86. 86
    Up & running with blogdown
    https://alison.rbind.io/post/up-and-running-with-blogdown/
    

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87. https://amber.rbind.io/blog/2016/12/19/creatingsite/
    

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89. Where are we?
    

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90. X
    I don’t know X, but I know
    I can figure it out…
    

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91. X
    Courage
    Enchantment
    Permission
    Persistence
    TRUST!
    

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92. X
    Courage
    Enchantment
    Permission
    Persistence
    TRUST!
    

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93. 93
    Learning should not feel like this
    

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94. 94
    Learning should feel like this
    

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95. Trey Speegle- https://20x200.com/products/trey-speegle-thank-you
    

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