S-PLUS Online User's Guide

Bret Larget

Duquesne University

January, 1999

Table of Contents


Computer Resources

College Hall room 444 is the multi-media classroom for the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science with 30 PCs that run both UNIX and Windows 95. There are an additional 17 similarly configured computers in the Alcoa Computer Lab across from the elevators next to the department office on the fourth floor of College Hall.

We will meet in the multi-media classroom for the weekly computer lab. You may use this room and the Alcoa Lab to complete outside of class homework assignments. There is a schedule outside of the multi-media classroom indicating times when classes meet. Note that many classes (especially mathematics classes) may not actually use the room as scheduled, so there is more open time in the lab than the schedule indicates.

If a class does come in to use the classroom, you are expected to leave promptly.


Getting started

How do I log on to the Computer?

How do I exit from UNIX?

How do I start Netscape under UNIX?

Where are the on-line course materials?

How do I start Windows 95?

How do I start S-PLUS?

What is S-PLUS?

How do I quit Windows?


S-PLUS questions

This portion of the guide answers some specific questions about using S-PLUS. The questions are divided into categories based on the general subject area. More information will be added throughout the semester as we discuss new topics. The help information in S-PLUS contains far more detail than the information included here.

Managing data

How do I load in a data set from the class Web page?

How do I import data from a floppy or some other file?

How do I enter in a small data set directly into S-PLUS?

How do I enter in a data set from an Excel spreadsheet?

How do I delete a data set?

How do I look at the data in a data set?


Managing the windows

How do I make a window active?

How do I make a window go away?

How do I make a window bigger?

How do I make a graph bigger?

How do I organize my windows?


Exploratory data analysis

Exploratory data analysis includes summarizing data with graphs and summary statistics. S-PLUS contains many powerful functions to explore data. This guide shows you how to do a few simple exploratory techniques. The basic graphs for summarizing one quantitative variable

How do I make a histogram?

How do I make a stemplot?

How do I make a boxplot?

How do I make side-by-side boxplots?

How do I calculate summary statistics such as means, standard deviations, and quartiles?


Last modified: January 27, 1999

Bret Larget, larget@mathcs.duq.edu