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Software for Data & Digital Scholarship

Information about DiSC-supported software for the collection, processing, analysis or display of numeric, text, or geospatial data

Stata is statistical software from StataCorp that is commonly used by economists, political scientists, and others in academia. Stata is considered to be more powerful than SPSS with excellent syntax and programming capabilities, though not necessarily as flexible as SAS and R.  People who know Stata often prefer it over SPSS and SAS because of the balance between difficulty and power. However, it is used far less than the other statistical softwares.

Some experienced researchers and older tutorials do not use these newer features of Stata that are much better. 

Getting Started

Best Bets

For a 45 min video introduction see:

  • Ready. Set. Go Stata (~45 min), sign up for live webinar
    • Navigation, working directory, opening files, toolbars, generate, dialog boxes, value labels, variable types, encoding, do files, describe, codebook, summarize, table, dtable, histogram, scatterplot, regression (at 27 min), post-estimation, margins, and help (at 34min)
    • Undergraduates may prefer Stata for Students, liked on the StataCorp tab.

The below resources all have a variety of video and written resources on basic and advanced topics.
See the tabs for links directly to some specific useful resources.

  • StataCorp - Materials from Stata itself, the best one-stop shop.
  • UCLA ATS - Long-standing favorite with tons of resources both old and new, basic and advanced.
  • SSCC - The Social Science Computing Cooperative has tutorials on data management and more
  • Franz Buscha - Economics professor has video courses on Stata, Regression, and Graphing

Materials from StataCorp

All Resources and Support, including their own list of community contributed Resources for learning Stata

 

Good Places to Start
Videos
Written

 

NOTE: The help documentation for Stata goes far beyond just explaining how to use the software, and includes tips on what to do and how to interpret the output. However, it can be a little intimidating to the new user and may take some time to get used to. Nevertheless, if you intend to use Stata for a dissertation or a job, it will be important to rely on the documentation.

UCLA ATS Statistical Computing

Videos
Lists of Topics
Specific Pages

Franz Buscha

The below are free for George Mason University students, faculty, and staff.

From LinkedIn Learning

From O'Reilly

Reference Sources

Quick Reference Sources

General
Specific Topics
Videos on Analysis

Handouts from DDSS

More Getting Started Tutorials

More "Getting Started" Tutorials for Specific Populations

These focus on using Stata, but also include data exploration and multiple regression. These features haven't changed much, so older tutorials are typically sufficient.

For Students
  • Stata for Students from Stata (~1  hr) , or newer links, see Past Webinar recordings
    • Import Excel, generate, value labels, variable types, encoding, do files, tabulate, describe, summarize, table (v18), histogram, scatterplot, analyses (t=41) including multiple regression (t-43) with factor variables (t=45), interactions, and margins
  • STATA for Undergraduates from U Rochester, Carolina Caetano (~2.5 hrs over 16 videos)  - designed for an undergraduate econometrics class. From 2015.
For Researchers
  • STATA for Beginners from Lucas Reis (~2.5 hrs over 22 videos) - Introduction to using Stata from a former employee focusing on useful tips for project and data management, such as log files, commenting, and data types. Great if you need to use Stata effectively for a bigger project.
  • Introduction to Stata from Alan Neustadtl (~1.75 hrs over 6 videos)  - designed for a graduate Sociology course at U Maryland, and lengthy but comprehensive. From 2013. Also has a collection of videos on Regression.
 

Alan Neustadtl

Professor of Sociology, University of Maryland

U Rochester

 

Books

Data Management & Bivariate Statistics

Accompanies Peter Galderisi. (2015). Understanding Political Science Statistics: Observations and Expectations in Political Analysis
Follow-along examples and exercises on using Stata (v12), Data Management, and basic univariate and bivariate data analysis.

From a professor of Sociology; covers up to bivariate analysis, integrating data management and other techniques to use Stata (v15) effectively.

Regression & More

Accompanies the Open Source textbook Introduction to Political Science Research Methods
Learn Stata (v16) by following along importing and exploring a dataset with regression modeling including panel data.

Need More?

Links to pages and pdfs on a variety of topics, including specific analyses and data management techniques.