Please send me your comments about the book and your suggestions for a better workflow. If you have a story about problems that you have encountered that you are willing to share, send them to me and I'll post them here.

Reactions

I recently read Scott Long’s new book The Workflow of Data Analysis Using Stata and I highly recommend it. One of the ironies of graduate education in the social sciences is that we spend quite a bit of time trying to explain things like standard error but largely ignore that on a modal day quantitative research is all about data management and programming. Although Long is too charitable to mention it, one of the reasons to emphasize these issues is that many of the notorious horror stories of quantitative research do not involve modeling but data management. ... By focusing on these largely neglected but critical data management issues, Long has done a service to the discipline. The publication of it may even reduce Indiana’s comparative advantage of producing hotshot quant PhDs now that grad students elsewhere can vicariously benefit from this important aspect of the training there. --Gabriel Rossman, Sociology, UCLA [For his full comments, including details on some infamous examples of bad workflow, check here.]

My copy of your book just arrived. It's a wonderful resource. I taught a workshop on related topics recently and wish I'd been able to cite this.  Great stuff. -- Prof. Stephen P. Jenkins, Director, Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex

Love your Workflow book. Thank you so much for conceiving it and seeing it through to the end, it is much overdue. -- Anya Chung, University of Michigan

Alan Acock's review in Stata Journal is here (originally published in the Stata Journal and is posted with the permission of StataCorp.)

I am Spanish professor of Public Economics who is at present enjoying a study-research leave at Melbourne University (Australia). Because of that I have had the time to read your book from cover to cover. I just want to thank you for the incredible work you have done!. A book such as this one is a must for anyone trying to make an academic career. Definitively, I will recommend it to my graduates students as soon as I go back to Spain. If I had the chance to reach this book twenty years ago I would have been much more efficient doing my work. Never it is too late! Thanks. -- Prof. Jose Felix Sanz-Sanz - Dept. of Applied Economics - Universidad Complutense de Madrid

You have written the book that I had planned to write someday. But I’m glad I didn’t—your book is much better. Congratulations, this was greatly needed. --Prof. Bill Gardner, The Ohio State University

I will post the announcement of Workflow on my door with the following note: “I’m glad to help anybody who followed at least 25% of the advice Long provides—and brings me their do-files!” --Prof. Alan C. Acock, Oregon State University

I just wanted to send you a thank you for taking the time to write this book. I feel a little like an obsessed fan because I read it for several hours last night, bought 3 copies for my new research team and am presenting our new organization scheme tomorrow. It turns out that we have just finished a first flurry of data collection and hiring and I’ve been scratching my head about how to systematize some aspects. It is a perfect time to superimpose a structure. I’ve used aspects of your plan in my own work (hence my eagerness to adopt) but having this coherent volume is a wonderful and practical resource. I learned a lot from reading this. Thank you! --Dr. Elizabeth Gifford, Research Scientist, Duke University

I just received a knock at my door with my new copy of The Workflow of Data Analysis Using Stata. I immediately ripped off the packaging and began perusing it. Just before the knock, I was attempting to write a program to get Stata to save the r(mean) and r(sd) for two variables following a summarize command to be saved for a ttesti command. After looking at your book for about two minutes, I stumbled upon pages 91–92, where it gave me all the information I need. … I have only had the book about 10 minutes and already it has made my life easier. Thanks much, and I am already looking forward to reading the rest of the book! --Dr. Claire M. Kamp Dush, The Ohio State University

"My copy of your new book arrived today and I am eagerly going through it. ... Thanks for writing a very necessary book. ... I am attaching an article published last year about the appallingly bad state of replicability in economics." JW 2008-11-24 {Citation is to: B. D. McCullough (2007) "Got Replicability?" The Journal of Money, Credit and Banking Archive,
Econ Journal Watch 4(3), 326-337.

Pre-publication reactions

"I will post the announcement of the Workflow book on my door with the following note: "I¹m glad to help anybody who followed at least 25% of the advice Long provides ---and brings me their do-files!" -Alan

"After reading this book, I was afraid to go outside for a week." -Tait