Chapter 2 R Markdown

“The success of your presentation will be judged not by the knowledge you send but by what the listener receives.” —Lilly Walters, Author

Most scientific disciplines require the investigator to relay her findings through reports or presentations. These reports often consist of human readable text, such as the investigator’s description of methods. Tables and figures are often used throughout to support the investigator’s description or perhaps to convey the results. Sometimes the investigator may even be required to provide code, perhaps illustrating how her methods can be implemented. Of course, all of these text, graphics, and code are well organized by headers and subheaders where certain information is highlighted by adjusting the placement (e.g. centering figures or spacing paragraphs) or changing the topography (e.g. switching fonts, bolding definitions, or italicizing jargon).

In this chapter, we will introduce R Markdown, an environment allowing you create reports, presentations, and much more from the comfort of RStudio. This allows you to combine information such as text, code, and figures easily and reliably.

Learning R Markdown may feel daunting at first. Unlike Microsoft Office products, you will not be able to click and drag to move items. Instead, the “look” of your R Markdown document are generated by templates and personalized by the syntax of your R Markdown file. With practice, you will learn how to custimize your documents to your liking and integrating information from different mediums (e.g. text and code) will be easier than ever before.