How to use this book

This short orientation chapter explains the daily cadence, the chapter template, and the conventions used throughout.

The daily cadence

Each day has the same shape:

  • Lecture content (~1 hour). Read the chapter, working through the examples in your own R session as you encounter them. Do not skip the examples; the chapter is designed to be read with R open.
  • Homework (~2 hours). Five to eight problems, with worked solutions at the end of the chapter. Attempt each problem before checking the solution.

The cadence assumes one chapter per day for five consecutive days. The boot camp can be compressed (two chapters per day across two-and-a-half days) or expanded (one chapter per week across a month) depending on the student’s other commitments.

Chapter template

Each chapter follows a five-section template:

  1. Learning objectives. A bulleted list of what the student should be able to do by the end of the day.
  2. Lecture. The substantive content for the day, with inline examples to run.
  3. Worked example. A small but realistic biomedical example that uses the day’s content end to end.
  4. Homework. Problems organised from easier to harder.
  5. Solutions. Worked solutions to all homework problems. Read only after attempting the problem.

There are no quizzes, no examinations, and no tests in this book. Self-assessment is via the homework solutions.

Conventions

Visual cues used throughout the book are described on the Conventions page. The book is R-first; the style follows tidyverse conventions:

  • The native pipe |> is used throughout (not %>%).
  • Assignment uses <- (not =).
  • Variable names use snake_case.
  • Code lines are wrapped at 78 characters.

Companion volumes

After the boot camp, the four follow-on volumes are at:

The end of Chapter 5 lists which companion volume picks up which thread.