We are excited to share a free extract of Zumel, Mount, Practical Data Science with R, 2nd Edition, Manning 2019: Evaluating a Classification Model with a Spam Filter.

This section reflects an important design decision in the book: teach model evaluation first, and as a step separate from model construction.

It is funny, but it takes some effort to teach in this way. New data scientists want to dive into the details of model construction first, and statisticians are used to getting model diagnostics as a side-effect of model fitting. However, to compare different modeling approaches one really needs good model evaluation that is independent of the model construction techniques.

This teaching style has worked very well for us both in R and in Python (it is considered one of the merits of our LinkedIn AI Academy course design):

One of the best data science courses I’ve taken. The course focuses on model selection and evaluation which are usually underestimated. Thanks to John Mount, the teacher and the co-authors of Practical Data Science with R. hashtag#AI200

(Note: Nina Zumel, leads on the course design, which is the heavy lifting, John Mount just got tasked to be the one delivering it.)

Zumel, Mount, Practical Data Science with R, 2nd Edition is coming out in print very soon. Here is a discount code to help you get a good deal on the book:

Take 37% off Practical Data Science with R, Second Edition by entering fcczumel3 into the discount code box at checkout at manning.com.