Reproducible reports provide a means to combine the code that produces a data analysis with the actual document that reports on that analysis. For most researchers, the work of doing analysis and writing up a report or paper about that analysis are distinct parts of our workflow. This traditional approach has significant drawbacks due to the added labor of moving tables, figures, and numbers between media, the potential errors involved in transcription, and an overall lack of transparency. Reproducible reports eliminate this division in workflow and allow researchers to focus simultaneously on both the analysis and its interpretation by weaving together narrative and code in a single dynamic document.

The Quarto system is one of the most powerful ways to produce reproducible reports that combine narrative and code to write academic papers, professional-quality reports, lab notebooks, web pages, blogs, presentations, and more. Quarto is the successor to the popular R Markdown system, but also includes powerful new features and the ability to use a variety of coding languages such as R and Python. Based on the simple and lightweight markdown syntax, Quarto is easy to learn and use.

Quarto works natively with R, but can also be used with Python. This course will familiarize you with how Quarto works and the principles behind its design. The primary focus will be on producing research documents such as papers and reports using Quarto, but various output formats will also be introduced.

The course will introduce you to the Quarto system and how you can use it to make fantastic-looking final products for your data analysis. You will learn the basic syntax of Quarto and how to create code chunks to insert executable code into your document. You will also learn how the basic structure of how Quarto works to produce documents of various types. You will leave the course with an understanding of how to integrate tables, figures, and citations into a document to produce a professional-looking report or paper, as well as additional knowledge of how to apply the Quarto approach to other output formats such as presentations, posters, and web content.

The seminar will be very hands on. If you have a project that you would like to develop using Quarto, you are more than welcome to bring that to class with you.