Getting Started - jonathancolmer/lab-guide GitHub Wiki

The following pages provide more detail on how to get started:

  • GitHub
    • GitHub is a platform for version control and collaboration using Git. It allows you to store, share, and track changes to code, data, and documents. We use GitHub to manage research projects, collaborate with others, and ensure all changes are documented and reversible.
  • VS Code
    • Visual Studio Code (VS Code) is a lightweight source code editor that supports debugging, version control with Git, and multiple programming languages, including Python, Stata, R, and LaTeX.
  • LaTeX
    • LaTeX is a typesetting tool commonly used to neatly handle equations, tables, and figures. Most papers are written in LaTeX using Overleaf, an online editor that allows for easy collaboration.
  • R
    • R is an open-source programming language and environment designed specifically for statistical computing and graphics. It is often used for data cleaning, running regressions, and creating figures.
  • Stata
    • Stata is widely used in economics and social sciences for data cleaning, analysis, and visualization.
  • Quarto
    • Quarto is an open-source publishing system for creating reproducible documents, reports, and presentations from R, Python, or other languages. It integrates code, results, and narrative text into a single document, making it ideal for reproducible research workflows.
  • Web Scraping
    • Web scraping is the process of extracting data from websites using automated scripts. It can be used to collect datasets not available in standard formats.
  • High Performance Computing
    • High Performance Computing (HPC) provides access to powerful computing clusters for running large-scale or computationally intensive analyses.
  • Reading Academic Papers
    • A guide to reading with purpose, asking the right questions, and using tools to annotate, organize, and synthesize academic work.
  • Conducting a Literature Review
    • A literature review systematically surveys and synthesizes existing research to provide context, identify gaps, and position your work in the broader academic conversation.
  • Writing for Academic and Policy Audiences
    • Guidance on crafting clear, precise writing for scholarly publications and translating research effectively for policy audiences.