Presentations in `R`

This repository provide a hands-on example of how RMarkdown can be used to create a slick presentation rendered as a HTML web page or an academic-style PDF presentation.

Getting Started

Presentations are created from RMarkdown files. To start, open a new RMarkdown file and choose a presentation format. RStudio gives three options:

We will focus on ioslides for interactive presentations and beamer for more formal academic presentations. Both presentation packages follow the same syntax rules:

The title of the presentation should be specified in the header.
A new slide is denoted by double hashes (##)
Text and narrative are written in the lines between hashes. But beware: too much text might not fit on the page when the presentation is rendered
To insert code, write this: ```{r}. Then insert R code in the following line. To end the code chunk, add ```.
Adding echo = FALSE (e.g. ```{r, echo = FALSE}) suppress actual code in the presentation but keeps the results. Given space constraints, this may be a wise thing to do.
Adding message = FALSE, warning = FALSE (e.g. ```{r, echo = FALSE, message = FALSE, warning = FALSE}) suppresses warnings and messages from packages. For example, when loading a library, R will often times output a text message indicating which packages were loaded. If these options are not specified, they will appear in the slides.

Presentation gist

When developing a presentation, try to keep the following in mind:

Start with big picture. Have a good reason why people should pay attention. What is in it for them?
Roadmap. Briefly discuss the outline of the talk, set expectations.
Sections. Start wide, then go deep. For each diagram/visual, there should always be a crisp one liner summary that can others can tell to others. At the end of each section, make sure to wrap up the concept and have a natural reason why you segue to the next section.

The example presentations in this section are focused on

Working with `ioslides`

How to style the presentation

Effects. Most of the styling and functionality of a presentation are controlled in the YAML header. In the header below, we include a set of arguments:

widescreen: boolean, if presentation should be standard or wide screen
smaller: boolean, if text should be large or small
incremental: boolean, if bullet points should appear one at a time (animation) or all at once (no animation)
transition: value to indicate how fast should slide transitions be. Choice of "default", "faster", "slower", or a numeric for seconds (e.g. 1, 2, 0.5).

---
title: "Insights about economic  "
author: "Author goes here"
date: "January 15, 2020"
output:
  ioslides_presentation:
    widescreen: true
    smaller: true
    incremental: false
    transition: slower
---

Background.

Some things to consider

While HTML presentations are aesthetically pleasing, they can be somewhat challenging for non-technical collaborators if they are not familiar with programming and basic Markdown.
Compatibility is limited to certain browsers. For example, ioslides works best with Google Chrome.
Maintaining and styling the presentation requires knowledge of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which can be specified in the header of the Markdown file.

Working with `beamer`

Styles

---
title: "Untitled"
author: "Jeff Chen"
date: "2/11/2020"
output: 
  beamer_presentation: 
    theme: Dresden
---

DataScienceForPublicPolicy/demo-presentation

Presentations in R