Book excerpt: This book covers the aspects of R most often used by statistical analysts. Incorporating the use of RStudio and the latest R packages, this second edition offers new chapters on simulation, special topics, and case studies. It reorganizes and enhances the chapters on data input and output, data management, statistical and mathematical functions, programming, high-level graphics plots, and the customization of plots. It also provides a detailed discussion of the philosophy and use of the knitr and markdown packages for R.