This video shows how to obtain and install R on the Windows (PC) platform. It also shows a few basic functions in R, such as how to install packages in R and load them for use.

This video shows how to obtain and install R on the Mac OS X platform. It also shows a few basic functions in R, such as how to install packages in R and load them for use. A PC version will follow shortly

Unfortunately, reality inevitably sets-in in the form of red-line-filled draft that features more recommendations than the surgeon general and more added work than you ever imagined would be forthcoming. The feeling can be both crushing and disheartening. The good news is: the pain can be avoided, or at least reduced to a minor setback.

The key to limiting the frustration inherent in this process is: TURN YOUR DRAFT IN! Relinquish your dreams of producing a perfect draft and turn-in the draft you have. The sooner you get a draft on your advisor's desk, the sooner you can receive their valuable feedback, allowing you to spend more time integrating it and less time on details that they may (or may not) ultimately approve of.

Please don't misinterpret what I'm saying here: I'm not suggesting that you should turn-in work that is blatantly of sub-standard quality. Certainly an advisor's time is valuable and not to be wasted. However, I am suggesting that you let go of the fantasy that your first draft will be perfect. When you feel that you've made an honest effort to move your manuscript forward, turn in a draft and allow your advisor to direct you to where things can be improved. The reality is that many details that are agonized over in early drafts are made irrelevant by recommended cuts and revisions by our advisor.

As a warning, the concepts I'm discussing here will feel unnatural to many readers. In fact, most doctoral candidates are high-achieving by nature, so striving for anything less than perfection may feel uncomfortable, or even down-right wrong. However, you'll be happy you heeded this advise when you receive your advisor's feedback and know that you are moving closer to your degree and saved yourself a lot of agonizing and wasted energy along the way.

Understand that major feedback is unquestionably coming and try to get your hands on that feedback sooner, rather than later. The alternative is spending day, weeks, or even months longer on a draft, only to receive a very similar amount of feedback, with a whole lot more frustration.

Searching for a good resource on a complex stats topic can be exhausting, not to mention overwhelming. The Stats Make Me Cry Bookshelf will be a dynamic list of the most helpful books on various statistical topics. Users will be able to submit books for inclusion in the list, comment on existing books in the list, and vote books up or down the list. In addition, links to sites where they can be purchased will be provided for all books on the list. For the record, I have no vested interest in any stats books, so all books will be posted solely on merit. Please feel free to submit books to be considered for inclusion, using the form in the left sidebar! Thanks!

A Google+ "Hangout" allows up to ten people to video chat simultaneously, with one person having the ability to moderate. I am now hosting a stats "hang-out" periodically (had two thus far), during which users attend on a "first come" basis and discuss stats issues and questions!

Here is how it works:

Readers interested in participating simply need to add their name and Google email address (@gmail) to my hangout list (or circle, as Google calls it), by using the form in this page's right sidebar. If you are already a "Google +" user, I'll add you to my "Stats Hangout" circle and from that point forward you will have access to the "Stats Hangouts", as they begin.

If you are not a "Google+" user, I will be happy to send you an "invite" to join (which is fast, easy, and free).

Watch the brief video below to see how Google+ hangouts work!

I'm looking forward to trying this idea and chatting with all of you with stats questions (or who just want to discuss stats)!

Imagine the circumstance where you are testing whether there is an association between "number of carrots consumed" and "blood pressure". Imagine further that you have reason to believe that the association between these two variables varies by age (for this example let's make age dichotomous, i.e. old vs. young). Perhaps you expect that the more carrots someone eats, the lower their blood pressure will be (negative association), but you think this will be more true for older people than younger (i.e. age moderates the effect of carrot consumption on blood pressure).

Since you'd expect that the association will probably still be negative in both groups, but more negative in older people (if your hypothesis is accurate), you might expect to see a graph like the one below:

When used in conjunction with the customizable SPSS table "Looks" function, formatting your variable labels and value labels can make your SPSS results tables nearly ready for publication, immediately after analysis (CLICK HERE FOR TUTORIAL VIDEO ON TABLE "LOOKS")! Fortunately, SPSS syntax offers a fairly straightforward method for assigning proper labels to both your variable labels and value labels.

For those of you unsure about the distinction between the two:

Variable Labels: Variable labels are composed of a few words that describe what a variable represents. Variable labels can include any combination of letters, numbers, or symbols, including entire sentences. If the variable labels are properly formatted in SPSS, they will show in output tables and graphs, instead of variable names (which usually aren't what we want for our manuscripts).

Value Labels: Value labels are labels for coded variables in our dataset. For example, if we have a variable called "Gender", which is coded 0 (Males) and 1 (Females), then we would have two value labels: "Males" for 0 and "Females" for 1.

The screenshot below shows an example SPSS dataset I created for demonstration purposes (as you can see at the bottom of the screenshot, we are seeing the "variable view", as opposed to "data view". To review, "data view" is used for editing the actual data, whereas "variable view" is used for editing the attributes of the variables (such as number of decimal places allowed, type of variable, the variable name, variable label, and value label). In our example below, neither the variable labels (1) nor the value labels (2) have been assigned for any of our four example variables.

One way to rectify this problem would be to:

1. Click in the field under "Label" for each variable and simply type in a label.
   
2. Click in the field under "Value" (on the right side of the field, click on the button that appears when you click in the field initially; see below left)
   
3. Enter the current number code that is assigned with the label that you desire for each code (clicking "add" between each code) in the dialogue that appears (see below right).

That would work fine if you only have a couple of variables, However, what if you have 10 variables, or 20, or 100... or 1000? Obviously, this can quickly turn into a ridiculously long process. This is when syntax makes things MUCH easier!

Here are the steps to assign variable labels:

1. Open a new syntax window by clicking through the following menu path (see below): File->New->Syntax.
   
   
2. Type the command "VARIABLE LABELS" (be careful of spelling).
   
3. On the next line (new line not required, but recommended), first type the name of the variable you want to assign a label to (in my example, the variable is "Example1"; see below).
   
4. On the same line as the variable name, insert a space, followed by a "single quote" (not a double quote/quotation mark), followed by whatever text you'd like to assign as the variable label for that variable, followed by another "single quote", and finally a period.

NOTE: if that is all you wish to do, start a new line and type EXECUTE, followed by another period; If you want to also assign value labels, as we will here, you can save the EXECUTE until the end.

Here are the steps to assign value labels (in the same syntax window):

1. Type the command "VALUE LABELS" (be careful of spelling).
   
2. On the next line (new line not required, but recommended), type the name of the variable you want to assign a value labels to (in my example, the variable is "Example1"; see below).
   
3. On the next line (new line not required, but recommended), type the number code that is currently in your data (to which you want to assign labels; in my example, the first code is 1), followed by a space...
   
4. On the same line as the variable name, insert a space, followed by a "single quote", followed by the label you wish to assign to that numeric code, followed by another "single quote".
   
   
5. On a new line, type the command EXECUTE, followed by a period, and then "run" the syntax.

NOTE: repeat step 2 &3 for each numeric code that exists for that variable; Insert a period after the last code is entered for that variable.

NOTE: To run the syntax, highlight the portion you wish to run AND THEN click on the "green play button" in the tool bar OR click through the following menu path "Run-> Selection" OR press the keyboard shortcut ("Command+r" [for mac]; "Control+r" [for PC]).

While this may be useful, doing this with only one variable doesn't offer that much improvement over the "point and click" method. However, when you apply this technique to transform several variables simultaneously, the time saved really begins to accumulate (see below).

There are a few things to pay particular attention to when working with multiple variables at once:

1. Be sure to insert a period after every line in the variable label command (as pictured above).
   
   
2. When assigning value labels, a "variable TO variable" format can be used (see above), instead of listing each variable name separately, as long as the variables are in consecutive order in the dataset (and you want to assign the same labels to all of those variables). IF THEY ARE NOT in consecutive order, you simply need to list each of the names separately.
   
3. If you have want to assign different sets of value labels to various variables, you simply need to separate each set of value labels with a forward slash ( / ), and begin with the new variable name on the next line (see below).

After you run your syntax, you should now see the information you chose populating the "Label" and "Value" columns of your dataset (seen below).

NOTE: If you also want to specify what codes in your data signify that the data is missing ("Missing" column [see above]), add the following commands to your syntax:

To assign for a single variable:

MISSING VALUES
Example (999).
EXECUTE.

To assign for multiple variables:

MISSING VALUES
Example1 to Example4 (999).
EXECUTE.

NOTE: will post links below that will allow you to download the sample SPSS syntax files pictured in this tutorial (click either or both below to download).

"SINGLE VARIABLE" EXAMPLE SYNTAX
"MULTI-VARIABLE" EXAMPLE SYNTAX

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Formatting a graph that was exported from SPSS to Microsoft Word can be an absolute pain. Since neither program is known for it's simplicity or "user-friendliness", the interaction between the two can be predictably tedious and frustrating. The process of converting a standard SPSS table to APA format might be bearable, when you are talking about a single table, but can become overwhelming when you have an entire manuscript worth of tables. Fortunately, a few minor alterations to your SPSS settings can make SPSS do most of the heavily lifting for you, making SPSS automatically produce tables that closely resemble APA format and cutting down your formatting time by as much as 90%!

The adjustments to SPSS that are needed to produce tables like the ones on the right are only necessary to be made once, after which the adjustments are made automatically by SPSS and you'll find all of your future tables are ready for insertion into your APA manuscript immediately after analysis. The necessary changes can be accomplished in 3 steps:

1) Produce an initial table for alteration (using any analysis; a simple frequency table is sufficient).

2) Create a custom "Table Look Style", by "Editing" the initial table's "Look Style" and saving the changes as a custom "style" ("APA Table" seems like a reasonable choice).

3) Adjust your SPSS settings (options) so that SPSS recognizes your newly created "Look Style" as the default table "Look Style".

From there, you can simply run your analyses as you typically would and your tables should be formatted in APA format. Let's get into the specifics about how to accomplish these three steps...

Once your table is in "editing" mode (below), right click again and click on "TableLooks..."

Next, the "TableLooks" screen (below) should pop-up.

Under "TableLooks Files:", change the selection to "CompactAcademicTimesRoman" ([1] below).

While simply making that switch gets us a lot closer to APA format than the "default" SPSS table, we can improve the settings to get us much closer with a  few additional changes.

NOTE: "CompactAcademicTimesRoman" is the closest "TableLook" to APA on its own, but luckily we can alter its attributes and save the changes!

Once you've clicked on "CompactAcademicTimesRoman", click on the "Edit Look..." button ([2] above).

After clicking on "Edit Look...", the "Table Properties" screen should pop-up (below).

Within the "Table Properties" screen, we are going to adjust elements of both the "Cell Formats" tab (above) and the "Borders" tab ([1] below).

First, the "Cell Formats" tab (above):

On the "Cell Formats" screen, you are able to adjust: the tables "Text" (font), the "Alignment" (justifications) of the text, the background color (which we will not be adjusting), and the "Inner Margins". We will only be changing the "Text" and "Alignment" settings. We'll deal with the "Text" first.

The default of all text in SPSS tables is 8 pt ([4] above), while the appropriate APA format font is 12 point, so the first thing we'll need to to is change all of the text in the table from 8 pt. (([4] above)) to 12 pt. Unfortunately, you are required to change each text element separately by either clicking on the element in the "Sample" table ([1] above) on the right side of the screen or by selecting different elements in the "Area" drop-down menu ([2] above).

For example, click on the words "Table Title" ([3] above) in the "Sample" table to edit that element. After clicking on the element, simply adjust the attributes on the left side of th screen (NOTE: to comply with APA format for table titles, change your font size from 8 pt. to 12 pt. ([4] above), make it italics and not bold ([5] above), and click on "Left Alignment" ([6] above])

Next, switch to the "Borders" tab ([1] below).

Once in the "Borders" tab, there are three elements that we are going to adjust:

1) Top inner frame ([2] above)

2) Bottom inner frame

3) Data area top

To adjust the "Top inner frame", highlight it in the Border menu section ([1] below). Next, click on the "Style" drop-down menu ([2] below) and change the style from the double line (not APA format) to the single thin line ([3] below; second from the bottom; complies with APA format).

Next, repeat the style adjustment for the "Bottom inner frame" ([1] below).

Again, repeat the style adjustment for the "Data area top" ([1] below).

Next, click the "Apply" button ([2] above), followed by the "OK" button ([3] above).

Before clicking "Save", make sure you are saving the "TableLook" file in the correct directory:

If you are a mac, you'll want to go to the "SPSS" folder (or PASWStatistics, depending on what version you have; [1] below) within your "Applications" folder and then navigate to the "Looks" folder ([2] below).

If you are on a PC, this folder is likely found under: C:>Documents and Settings> Program Files>SPSS

Once inside the "Looks" folder (below), you should see various other "TableLooks" files (the files end in ".stt"). If you see that, you know you are in the right folder. From here, check to make sure your "File Name" is what you want it to be and then click "Save" ([1] below).

After you've clicked "Save", you should find yourself back in the "TableLooks" dialogue screen (below). Also, you should now see a newly available "TableLook" in the "TableLook Files:" area ([1] below) (the one you saved above). Next, simply click on that to highlight it (1] below) and then click the "OK" button ([2] below).

After clicking "OK", the "TableLooks" screen should disappear and the initial table you created should again be visible, but its format should now reflect the changes we've made and it should more closely resemble APA format (below)!

http://bit.ly/dXgIj4

]]>Check Out This Great Post About Confusing Stats Terms at the "Analysis Factor"!http://www.statsmakemecry.com/smmctheblog/2010/11/2/check-out-this-great-post-about-confusing-stats-terms-at-the.htmlJeremy Taylor2010-11-02T13:23:27ZAnalysis Stats Make Me Cry Blog Entries confusing statsNo new blog this week, because I'm out voting! However, i did come across a great blog about other confusing stats terms at the "Analysis Factor"! Check it out: http://bit.ly/btqo2u