Getting help

The first place to get help with R is the Comprehensive R Archive Network, where you can find many resources about R, such as manuals and FAQs, and also general announcements from the developers.

Directly in RStudio you can open the Help page (on the Help tab, usually on the bottom right panel) by running “?” followed by the name of the function or package:

?read.table

If you cannot remember the exact name of a function, but remember its subject, you can use the help.search() function passing what you remember as an argument.

help.search("csv")  ## then use ? read.table for more precise info

The function find() finds which package a given function is in (more on packages and functions later); apropos() returns the objects and functions that match the argument you pass to it; example() and demo() take function names as arguments and are useful to learn how those functions work.

# Try using those functions
find("max")

apropos("lm")

example(lm)
demo(graphics)

Finally, knowing the version of R you are using and how to cite it (do not forget to cite it!) are always useful and can be done as follows:

version

               _                                
platform       x86_64-w64-mingw32               
arch           x86_64                           
os             mingw32                          
crt            ucrt                             
system         x86_64, mingw32                  
status                                          
major          4                                
minor          5.2                              
year           2025                             
month          10                               
day            31                               
svn rev        88974                            
language       R                                
version.string R version 4.5.2 (2025-10-31 ucrt)
nickname       [Not] Part in a Rumble           

citation()

To cite R in publications use:

  R Core Team (2025). _R: A Language and Environment for Statistical
  Computing_. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria.
  <https://www.R-project.org/>.

A BibTeX entry for LaTeX users is

  @Manual{,
    title = {R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing},
    author = {{R Core Team}},
    organization = {R Foundation for Statistical Computing},
    address = {Vienna, Austria},
    year = {2025},
    url = {https://www.R-project.org/},
  }

We have invested a lot of time and effort in creating R, please cite it
when using it for data analysis. See also 'citation("pkgname")' for
citing R packages.