Data Visualisation: The Power and Beauty of the Grammar of Graphics

In previous blog posts, we introduced and implemented the Grammar of Graphics plotting concept. Here, we want to show how implementing this framework in R allows for the efficient, flexible and transparent production of reproducible plots that effectively communicate key messages.  This data set comes from Lenka Forkelova, a student of one of our Data Visualisation workshops held at the Max Planck...


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Introducing the Statistical Literacy Workshop

We are very excited to announce the newest workshop to complement our data-focused workshops: Statistical Literacy.   Teaching Literacy, not Memorization The target group for this workshop is young doctoral students in the life sciences. Many of these students encounter applied statistics for the first time during their doctoral studies and are not equipped with a well-rounded understanding...


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Implementing the Grammar of Graphics

This is the second part of a three-part Grammar of Graphics series (See part one). In this post, I want to explore how data can be represented in different ways. It is only when we take advantage of a plot's grammer that we can being communicating results and uncovering interesting trends.   Case Study: Representing the Wage Gap During my talk at re:publica 14, I presented a case study...


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Introducing the Grammar of Graphics Plotting Concept

In my recent talk at re:publica 14 in Berlin, I introduced the audience to the Grammar of Graphics((For a comprehensive introduction see Leland Wilkinson's The Grammar of Graphics, 2nd Ed.)) plotting concept. This concept is implemented in the second day of our Data Visualisation workshop. So, what do we mean by the Grammar of Graphics? In a series of three posts, I will introduce the plotting...


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Teaching proposal writing in an inter-disciplinary melting-pot

Last month, Science Craft's trainers brought our Proposal Writing workshop to the Graduierten-Akademie der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität in Jena. Over the course of 2 days, Babette and Brian worked together with 12 participants whose backgrounds could not have been more diverse in terms of research discipline, grant-writing experience and nationality. This workshop allowed us to explore the do's...


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R: The most powerful and most widely used statistical software

Revolution Analytics, the makers of the Revolution R Enterprise software, have just released a great video to introduce R to more people. "What is R? is a 90 second introduction to the powerful world of R. We use R in both the Data Analysis and Data Visualisation workshops. This is why:


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Scientific Writing in Shanghai

This spring Rick and Brian took Science Craft's workshop on Scientific Writing to China, working together with students at the CAS-MPG (China Academy of Sciences – Max Planck Society) Partner Institute for Computational Biology in Shanghai. 18 students took part in the workshop, which was held over 5 days in March. This workshop provided new and unique challenges for Science Craft. In addition...


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Science Craft Celebrates 1 Year of Workshops

Science Craft has just celebrated its first birthday! We are delighted to mark the occasion with an appraisal of our first year and a preview of upcoming plans for 2013. Science Craft's birthday coincided with the start of the Chinese Year of the Snake so we are extremely excited to be offering our first international Scientific Writing workshop in China in March. The workshop will be held for Chinese...


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Science Craft: Workshops that Work

As the summer draws to a close, we thought this would be a good time for an update on what we've been up to at Science Craft. This summer, our Scientific Writing workshops have benefited from guest lectures by Andy Hufton (editor of Molecular Systems Biology) and Adam Wilkins (former editor-in-chief of Bioessays and currently editor at Genetics) each providing an editor's behind-the-scenes perspective...


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Why Use R? R’s 3 Core Strengths: Simplicity, Power, Flexibility

In my experience, most biologists justify their continued use of Microsoft Excel with the excuse "better the devil you know". It doesn't have to be that way! R is a statistical programming environment that is not only extremely powerful and highly flexible but is also surprisingly easy to use. In this post, I'd like to introduce the absolute beginner to some of the core strengths of R that set it apart...


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