Week 1: Introduction
 Prof. Jack Reilly
 Fall 2026

Due This Week: Problem Set 1: Hello & Welcome to R
Lecture: Course Introduction
Download slides (PDF)
Readings
•	Recommended reference reading:
–	DV, chapter 1
–	RDS chapter 2
–	FCSP chapters 1-2
•	We will not cover all of this material in ch 2 this week; don’t get too caught up on things not in course slides or course R scripts
–	DMSS chapters 1-2
•	Ignore, for now, things that relate to Database Management Systems (DBMSs) or SQL
–	The Plain Person’s Guide to Plain Text Social Science, ch 1-2 (https://plain-text.co/index.html)
•	Note: The Plain Person’s Guide is a little out of date technically - some of the tools discussed have newer, and better, versions - but the underlying principles and philosophy are what you should pay attention to
Data & Computational Work
If you haven’t yet followed the instructions for installing R & RStudio under “preliminaries”, now is the time to do so.
Due Next Week: Problem Set 2