This page provides information about the workbooks in the Practical Statistics for Biologists Workbooks series from Pictish Beast Publications.
The workbooks in this series aim to fill the gap between learning about statistical theory and learning how to actually use statistics in a practical and biologically meaningful way. The books focus is, therefore, on developing practical skills, based on learning appropriate workflows, rather than statistical theory. Details of each book in this series, along with links to download the data sets used for their practical exercises, can be found in the title-specific sections below.
Workbooks Currently Available In This Series
1. An Introduction to Basic Statistics for Biologists using R
ISBN: 978-1-909832-07-7; RRP: GBP: 22.99; USD: 29.99; Euro: 27.99; Published April 2020. Buy It Now: To purchase this book from Amazon.com, click here; To purchase it from Amazon.co.uk, click here.
This book provides biologists with a uniquiely easy-to-understand introduction to conducting statistical analysis in R. It does this through a series of practical exercises based on easy-to-follow flow diagrams that show biologists exactly how to do a variety of key tasks.
These include: 1. Importing data sets and preparing them for analysis; 2. Creating graphs from them; 3. Assessing and transforming their distributions; 4. Using statistics to compare data between groups; 5. Conducting correlations and regressions.
Together, these represent the key tasks biologists need to be able to carry out to start analysing their data using R. This means it provides the perfect practical introduction for any biologist interested in learning how to use R to do statistics.
This book is also well-suited to act as a course text for those who wish to teach introductory statistics courses using R, whether remotely, online or in-person, to undergraduate, masters or postgraduate students in any biological field. This is because it not only provides a practical guide suitable for accompanying the teaching of statistical theory, it also provides off-the-shelf exercises, complete with suitable data sets, that can be used as the basis for practical classes. Free supporting materials to help with such classes are available here.
You can download the following free extracts from this book (but please do not re-post them anywhere else without express written permission):
- Table of Contents.
- Chapter 1 – Introduction (whole chapter).
- Chapter 2 – What You Need To Know To Get Started With R (first 4 pages).
- Chapter 3 – Preparing Biological Data For Statistical Analysis Using R (introduction to the chapter and the first 5 pages of Exercise 1.1: How to import data into R).
- Exercise 2.1 – How To Make A Frequency Distribution Histogram (first 6 pages).
- Exercise 3.1 – How To Assess Whether A Biological Data Set Has A Normal Distribution Using R (first 7 pages).
This book can be purchased from from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and other local Amazon sites, as well as from all other good bookshops, or direct from the publishers, Pictish Beast Publications, with worldwide shipping. To order this book directly from the publisher (individually or in bulk), email info@pictishbeastpublications.com. Wholesalers and retailers can also order this book through the Ingram Content Group.
To download the data required for this workbook, click here.
2. An Introduction to Making Graphs and Map for Biologists using R
ISBN: 978-1-909832-08-4; RRP: GBP: 24.99; USD: 32.99; Euro: 29.99; Published January 2022. Buy It Now: To purchase this book from Amazon.com, click here; To purchase it from Amazon.co.uk, click here.
This book provides biologists with a uniquiely easy-to-understand introduction to creating graphs and maps in R. It does this through a series of practical exercises based on easy-to-follow flow diagrams that show biologists exactly how to do a variety of key tasks.
These include: 1. Creating your first graphs in R using GGPlot; 2. Creating graphs dispalying groups of data with GGPlot; 3. Creating graphs displaying individual data points 4. Creating other types of graphs, such as pie charts and bubble graphs; 5. Creating maps from biological data using R.
Together, these represent the key tasks biologists need to be able to carry out to make high quality graphs and maps. This means it provides the perfect practical introduction for any biologist interested in learning how to use R to create informative data visualisations.
This book is also well-suited to act as a course text for those who wish to teach biologists how to make graphs and maps in R, whether remotely, online or in-person, to undergraduate, masters or postgraduate students in any biological field. This is because it provides off-the-shelf exercises, complete with suitable data sets, that can be used as the basis for practical classes. Free supporting materials to help with such classes are available here. [NOTE: These option are not yet live].
We run a range of courses to fit all requirements based around this book, including in-person courses, live distance learning courses and a free on-demand online course. For more information, please click here.
You can download the following free extracts from this book (but please do not re-post them anywhere else without express written permission):
- Table of Contents.
- Chapter 1 – Introduction (whole chapter).
- Chapter 2 – What You Need To Know To Get Started With R (first 4 pages).
- Chapter 3 – How To Create Your First Graphs in R Using GGPlot (introduction to the chapter and the first 6 pages of Exercise 1.1: How to create a bassic graph in R using GGPlot).
- Exercise 2.1 – How To Classify Data Into Groups And Create A Bar Graph Based On Them (first 6 pages).
- Exercise 3.1 – How To Create An X-Y Scatter Plot Displaying One Data Series Using GGPlot (first 6 pages).
This book can be purchased from from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and other local Amazon sites, as well as from all other good bookshops, or direct from the publishers, Pictish Beast Publications, with worldwide shipping. To order this book directly from the publisher (individually or in bulk), email info@pictishbeastpublications.com. Wholesalers and retailers can also order this book through the Ingram Content Group.
To download the data required for this workbook, click here.