programming_assignments

Programming assignments for Data Science for Linguistics.

• pa1
• pa2
• pa3

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Assignment 1

Topic: GitHub

Overview

In this assignment you will practice the basics of working with project repos using GitHub and the GitHub desktop app. Specifically, you will fork this repo, clone it to your computer, contribute to it, push changes from your local repo (your computer) to your upstream branch (your forked copy on GitHub), and, finally, submit a pull request to merge your contribution with the master repo (i.e., the professor’s copy).

Assigned: Week 1
Due: Monday, 02/03 before 10pm

Instructions

1. If you have not already done so, fork this repo and clone it to your computer.
2. In your local copy create a personal ‘dropbox’
   1. create an empty folder named “lastname_firstname” (ex. casillas_joseph). Put it inside misc > students.
   2. create another README.md file and place it inside your personal folder. Include the following info:
      • Your name
      • Your email
      • Your personal website if you have one
      • A goal you have for this class
3. Create another folder. Name it summaries and place it inside your personal dropbox folder. Next, read Wickham, 2015. Create a file called wickham_2015_summary.md and write a 4 sentence summary about the article. Save this file in summaries inside your personal dropbox (the lastname_firstname folder you just made).
4. Read R4DS Preface - Ch. 2 (p. ix-41). Do all examples included in the text as you read (nothing to turn in).
5. Read QML Ch. 1 (pp. 1-33). Do the R examples included in the text as you read (nothing to turn in).
6. Commit the changes to your upstream branch, i.e., your copy of the repo on github.com. Check your repo on GitHub to make sure it worked, and then submit a pull-request. It should include the following…
   1. your dropbox folder (lastname_firstname)
   2. a README.md file
   3. a summaries folder (inside your dropbox)
   4. your Wickham (2015) summary (wickham_2015_summary.md)

Evaluation

This is programming assignment 1 of 4. It is worth 10 of the 40 possible points. In order to receive full credit you must complete steps 1-6 above and follow all the instructions.

Task	Points
Create a dropbox folder	1
Include a README.md	1
Create a summaries folder	1
Include a summary of Wickham (2015)	2
Successfully submit a pull request	5
Total	10

Tips

This is how the file structure currently looks:

programming_assignments
       │
       ├── README.md
       └── misc
           └── students
               ├── README.md
               └── lastname_firstname
                   ├── README.md
                   └── summaries
                       └── wickham_2015_summary.md

Take a look inside the firstname_firstname folder if you need an example (this is highly recommended). Your personal dropbox should look exactly the same, but with your information, summaries, etc. In other words, you will add a folder inside students that looks like this (I am using my name, you will use your name):

casillas_joseph
        │
        ├── README.md
        └── summaries
            └── wickham_2015_summary.md

Remember to check the GitHub setup tutorial if you need help pushing your changes and submitting a pull request.

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Assignment 2

Topics: RMarkdown, ggplot

Overview

In this assignment you will practice the basics of using .Rmd files to create dynamic, reproducible reports in .docx, .pdf, or .html format. Moreover, you will show your data visualization skills using ggplot2.

Assigned: Week 3
Due: Monday, 2/17 before 10pm

Instructions

1. Fetch the latest updates in programming_assignments to your forked branch and pull the changes to your local copy (i.e., the copy on your computer). Review the GitHub setup tutorial if you need a refresher.
2. Create a folder, pa2, inside your personal dropbox.¹
3. In RStudio create an RMarkdown file called README.Rmd and put it inside the pa2 folder.
4. Use the following information for the yaml front matter:

title: "Programming assignment 2"  
author: "Your name"  
date: "Last update: `r Sys.time()`"  
output:  
  html_document:  
    highlight: kate  
    keep_md: yes  
    theme: united

5. Install and load the languageR package from CRAN.
6. Familiarize yourself with three of the following five datasets:
   • beginningReaders
   • danish
   • dativeSimplified
   • english
   • spanishFunctionWords
7. Inside your README.Rmd file you will generate 3 different plots using ggplot2. You must use 3 of the aforementioned datasets (a different dataset for each plot). All plots must include informative x-, y-axis labels and a title. The plots you must create are:
   1. A bivariate scatterplot
   2. A boxplot with different fill colors
   3. A plot of your choice that includes a stat_summary and a facet.
8. Commit the changes in your dropbox to your upstream branch, i.e., your forked copy on github. Check your repo on GitHub.com to make sure it worked (notice anything cool when you check the pa2 folder?), and then submit a pull-request to the ds4ling/programming_assignments main repo. It should include the following…
9. your pa2 folder
10. your README.Rmd RMarkdown file (and probably a few others)
11. 3 plots created using ggplot

Evaluation

This is programming assignment 2 of 4. It is worth 10 of the 40 possible points. In order to receive full credit you must complete all the steps above and follow all the instructions.

Task	Points
Create a pa2 folder	0.5
Create a README.Rmd file	0.5
Use correct yaml front matter	1
Generate 3 specified plots	6
Successfully submit a pull request	2
Total	10

Tips

Review Ch. 1 of R4DS for help with ggplot. DO NOT copy the plots directly from the book or the internet (I’ll know). Review the GitHub setup tutorial, especially if you are struggling with git-specific terminology. Pay special attention to file names, letter case, etc. in order to get the appropriate results.

This is more or less how your dropbox should look (Note: your pa2 folder will have a little more detail than what I have described here. That is fine):

casillas_joseph
        │
        ├── README.md
        ├── summaries
        │    └── r4ds_ch1_summary.md
        └── pa2
             └── README.Rmd

1: Note: you might have noticed that your current copy of programming_assignments now includes the dropbox folders of your classmates. This is on purpose. You are encouraged to review your classmates assignments. You can learn from them and you will notice that it is possible to solve data science problems using a variety of different methods. That being said, you should only review the work of your classmates after the assignment has been turned in.

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Assignment 3

Topics: Project management, Tidying data, GitHub Pages

Overview

In this assignment you will create your own RStudio project in which you get, tidy, transform and plot data from a publicly available dataset. You will host your project in a GitHub repo and create a project website.

Assigned: Week 5, 02/24
Due: Monday, 03/03 before 10pm

Instructions

Choose any data set you want from the languageR, untidydata, or worldlanguages packages (it can be the same one you used last week, but if you prefer something different get permission first). To see all the options, run the following code in RStudio:

data(package = "languageR") 
data(package = "untidydata")
data(package = "worldlangauges")

or check the documentation on the package website (note: you may need to install the package first).

Setup

1. Create a new repo from GitHub.com called pa3 and clone it to your desktop.
2. Create a new project for your repo using RStudio.
3. Inside your new project, create an RMarkdown document called index.Rmd (the default output format should be html).

EDA

4. Load the data set of your choice and get information about its structure (remember all code needs to be inside a knitr code chunk).
5. Tidy the data set (every variable gets a column, every observation occupies a single row), if necessary.
6. Calculate descriptive statistics of your choice.
7. Select two continuous variables and fit a model to the data (bivariate regression).
8. Generate a plot that includes a regression line.
9. Write up some general observations (1-2 paragraphs max)

Share

10. Commit your changes and push them to GitHub.
11. Publish your repo using GitHub Pages.
12. Update your fork of the programming_assignments repo. Next, create a new folder inside your dropbox in programming_assignments called pa3. Include a README.md file with a link to your published pa3 website. Submit a pull request to the master programming_assignments repo.

Evaluation

This is programming assignment 3 of 4. It is worth 10 of the 40 possible points. In order to receive full credit you must complete all steps in Setup, EDA, and Share detailed above, and follow all the instructions. Moreover, steps 1-5 in EDA must be completed in separate code chunks, you must comment every step in your code, and you MUST knit your project before submitting.

Task	Points
Tidy data	2
Descriptive stats	0.5
Plot data	1
Fit bivariate regression	1
Publish to GitHub Pages	5
Successfully submit pull request	0.5
Total	10

Tips

• Review the RStudio Projects tutorial to refresh your memory.
• Review the recommended readings for tips on tidying your data.
• Only submit a pull request to programming_assignments once everything is working properly in your repo.
• Always include a README in your repos.
• Make sure you look at the output after knitting. Is it clean? Make it look good (i.e., don’t type everything in bold!).
• Use slack to ask questions

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