PATTERNS.Rmd

---
title: 'Patterns'
---

# (PART) Patterns {-}

# Learning key patterns

![](media/patterns.png)

Statistics courses teach statistics, and software training or programming
courses can teach you the fundamentals of a particular package --- for example
R.

However, a large part of learning how to analyse data is actually not about
particular statistical techniques, nor the detals of implementing them in a
particular package.

Instead, the most useful things to take away from a course can be how to think
about different types of problem, and general strategies for tackling them. One
label applied to these approaches and strategies are 'patterns'.

We've already come across one pattern in the section on
[summarising data](summarising-data): the
[split, apply, combine method](#split-apply-combine).

This section outlines some other patterns or ways of working that may be
helpful.