[R] Comments on "Introduction to R"

[Jim Lemon]

Hi Abdullah,
A good job of proof reading, something too often neglected in documentation.

Jim

On Fri, Jun 11, 2021 at 4:51 PM Abdullah Khasawneh
<abdullahkhasawneh using hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
> I have recently finished reading "Introduction to R" and enjoyed it and benefited from it immensely. Thank you very much for your efforts.
>
> I feel the word "corrections" is a bit presumptuous, so below are a few suggestions I have regarding the text. Please let me know if I am mistaken in any.
>
> Thank you again.
>
> Best regards,
> Abdullah Khasawneh
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Page 2:
> (Indeed most of the system supplied functions are themselves written in the S language.)\
> I suggest a hyphen between the two highlighted words.
>
> Page 2:
> We prefer to think of it of an environment within which many classical and modern statistical techniques have been implemented.
> Perhaps "as an environment"?
>
> Page 4:
> The ‘Search Engine and Keywords’ link in the page loaded by help.start() is particularly useful as it is contains a high-level concept list which searches though available functions.
> I think these should be "as it contains" and "through".
>
> Page 5:
> Commands are separated either by a semi-colon (‘;’), or by a newline.
> I think the two words have been connected inadvertently.
>
> Page 6:
> When R is started at later time from the same directory it reloads the workspace from this file.
> I think it's "at a later time".
>
> Page 6:
> ... but it can be quite hard to decide what they might be when the several analyses have been conducted in the same directory.
> Perhaps it should be "when several analyses", without "the".
>
> Page 7:
> Notice that the assignment operator (‘<-’), which consists of the two characters ‘<’ (“less than”) and ‘-’ (“minus”) occurring strictly side-by-side and it ‘points’ to the object receiving the value of the expression.
> I suggest a comma here, and deleting "and it".
>
> Page 14:
> Similarly character() is a empty character vector, and so on.
> It should be "an empty". Also, a comma after "similarly" would be nice.
>
> Page 14:
> ... makes it an object of length 5 consisting of just the former components with even index.
> Should it be "with even indices"?
>
> Page 17:
> Since there is an builtin function var() to calculate...
> I suggest "a built-in".
>
> Page 17:
> Note that R’s a builtin function sd() is something different.
> There is no need for the indefinite article, and perhaps "built-in" should be hyphenated.
>
> Page 20:
> For example, if the vector h contains 24 or fewer, numbers then the command...
> The comma should be after the word "numbers".
>
> Page 20:
> ... would use h to set up 3 by 4 by 2 array in Z.
> I believe it's "a 3-by-4-by-2". I am not sure about the hyphenation, but there should be an indefinite article.
>
> Page 21:
> The result of the function is an array of the same size as a but with old dimension given by perm[j] becoming the new j-th dimension.
> It's "with the old dimension".
>
> Page 24:
> In this case any vector argument, possibly cyclically extended, are of course taken as row vectors.
> Either "argument" should be pluralized, or other parts of the sentence singularized.
>
> Page 27:
> ... and by default1 character vectors are coerced to be factors, whose levels are the unique values appearing in the vector.
> Unfortunately, in the current edition of R, they are coerced to be character variables, if I'm not mistaken.
>
> Page 30:
> By default numeric items (except row labels) are read as numeric variables and non-numeric variables, such as Cent.heat in the example, as factors.
> I suggest a comma after "By default". Also, please refer to the note above about coercion into factors.
>
> Page 47:
> ... it replaces the value, in that environment, with the value of right hand side.
> Maybe it should be "of the right-hand side".
>
> Page 54:
> ... (Akaike’s An Information Criterion)...
> I think it's "Akaike information criterion".
>
> Page 63:
> Although this is done automatically, it may useful to know that...
> This is missing the verb "be".
>
> Page 66:
> Also lm.obj may be list with a coefficients component of length 2...
> I recommend adding the indefinite article "a" before the word "list".
>
> Page 68:
> The identify() functions performs no plotting itself, but...
> The word "functions" is pluralized.
>
> Page 76:
> R does not have builtin capabilities for dynamic or interactive graphics, e.g. rotating point clouds or to “brushing” (interactively highlighting) points.
> I suggest a hyphen in "built-in", and perhaps "for" instead of "to".
>
> Page 79:
> ... platforms, considerable effort has gone into make the scripting facilities as platform-independent as is feasible.
> The gerund "making" should be used here.
>
> End of list.
> Thank you for your patience.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
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>
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