As the data generated from high-throughput biological experiments increase in volume and become more complex, the ability to manipulate and visualise data is a highly-desirable skill in academia and industry. Whilst familiar tools such as Excel allow basic manipulations, they are often not scalable to larger datasets and are not ameanable to reproducible analysis. R is a highly-regarded, free, software environment for statistical analysis, with many useful features that promote and facilitate reproducible research.