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datacarpentry / NEON-R-Tabular-Time-Series

These data tutorials complement the spatio-temporal lessons (raster and vector) in R lessons. These lessons are close to being published on the neondataskills.org website.
http://neon-workwithdata.github.io/NEON-R-Tabular-Time-Series
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Easily understood description of factors #69

Closed lwasser closed 8 years ago

lwasser commented 8 years ago

in Lesson 00 - line 137

When reading in files we most often usestringsAsFactors = FALSE. This setting will ensure that non-numeric data (strings) are not converted to factors. Factors are non-numerical data that can be numerically interpreted and may have a level associated with them.

I think this definition will be challenging for a beginner to understand. let's find a better one. Just making an issue so we can move on but come back to it.

I'd also like to review that explanation a bit more closely. it's a bit of a tangent so early on in the lesson but also important.

lwasser commented 8 years ago

a nice overview of factors has been added to the lesson

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