Think Like a Data Scientist (1 ed)

Summary

Think Like a Data Scientist presents a step-by-step approach to data science, combining analytic, programming, and business perspectives into easy-to-digest techniques and thought processes for solving real-world data-centric problems.

Think Like a Data Scientist teaches you a step-by-step approach to solving real-world data-centric problems. By breaking down carefully crafted examples, you’ll learn to combine analytic, programming, and business perspectives into a repeatable process for extracting real knowledge from data. As you read, you’ll discover (or remember) valuable statistical techniques and explore powerful data science software. More importantly, you’ll put this knowledge together using a structured process for data science. When you’ve finished, you’ll have a strong foundation for a lifetime of data science learning and practice.

Table of Contents

1. PART 1 – PREPARING AND GATHERING DATA AND KNOWLEDGE

2. Philosophies of data science
3. Setting goals by asking good questions
4. Data all around us: the virtual wilderness
5. Data wrangling: from capture to domestication
6. Data assessment: poking and prodding

7. PART 2 – BUILDING A PRODUCT WITH SOFTWARE AND STATISTICS

8. Developing a plan
9. Statistics and modeling: concepts and foundations
10. Software: statistics in action
11. Supplementary software: bigger, faster, more efficient
12. Plan execution: putting it all together

13. PART 3 – FINISHING OFF THE PRODUCT AND WRAPPING UP

14. Delivering a product
15. After product delivery: problems and revisions
16. Wrapping up: putting the project away