New to Stata, need some advice about how to learn Stata

[Chris Hou]

Hello, everyone. I am new to Stata, really need some advice about how to learn STATA, especially how to use STATA for panel data. Any recommendations for lecture videos and books are welcome. Thanks in advance.

[William Lisowski]

I'm sympathetic to you as a new user of Stata - there is quite a lot to absorb.

When I began using Stata in a serious way, I started, as have others here, by reading my way through the Getting Started with Stata manual relevant to my setup. Chapter 18 then gives suggested further reading, much of which is in the Stata User's Guide, and I worked my way through much of that reading as well. All of these manuals are included as PDFs in the Stata installation and are accessible from within Stata - for example, through the PDF Documentation section of Stata's Help menu.

In particular, for panel data you should review the introductory material at the front of the Stata Longitudinal-Data/Panel-Data Reference Manual PDF.

The objective in doing the reading was not so much to master Stata - I'm still far from that goal - as to be sure I'd become familiar with a wide variety of important basic techniques, so that when the time came that I needed them, I might recall their existence, if not the full syntax, and know how to find out more about them in the help files and PDF manuals.

Stata supplies exceptionally good documentation that amply repays the time spent studying it - there's just a lot of it. The path I followed surfaces the things you need to know to get started in a hurry and to work effectively.

Stata also supples YouTube videos, if that's your thing.

[Nick Cox]

William Lisowski gives great advice. If you're new to Stata and also need to hit the ground running with panel analysis, you'll be learning basics and more specialised commands at the same time.

What I see all too often is a complaint with the flavour "I've spent hours Googling and watching videos and I am still confused". My advice is based on Stata itself being the main documentation. Use help and search and read the manuals and the FAQs first. There are community-contributed resources which help -- I've written some bits and pieces, as have many other users. But start with Stata is the first idea.

[Felix Bittmann]

This book is quite nice for a very first start with Stata and panel data: https://books.google.de/books?hl=de&...iences&f=false

[Chris Hou]

I'm sympathetic to you as a new user of Stata - there is quite a lot to absorb.

When I began using Stata in a serious way, I started, as have others here, by reading my way through the Getting Started with Stata manual relevant to my setup. Chapter 18 then gives suggested further reading, much of which is in the Stata User's Guide, and I worked my way through much of that reading as well. All of these manuals are included as PDFs in the Stata installation and are accessible from within Stata - for example, through the PDF Documentation section of Stata's Help menu.

In particular, for panel data you should review the introductory material at the front of the Stata Longitudinal-Data/Panel-Data Reference Manual PDF.

The objective in doing the reading was not so much to master Stata - I'm still far from that goal - as to be sure I'd become familiar with a wide variety of important basic techniques, so that when the time came that I needed them, I might recall their existence, if not the full syntax, and know how to find out more about them in the help files and PDF manuals.

Stata supplies exceptionally good documentation that amply repays the time spent studying it - there's just a lot of it. The path I followed surfaces the things you need to know to get started in a hurry and to work effectively.

Stata also supples YouTube videos, if that's your thing.

Thanks so much. William. Good advice and will definitely check it out.

[Chris Hou]

This book is quite nice for a very first start with Stata and panel data: https://books.google.de/books?hl=de&...iences&f=false

Thanks for your helo, Felix. I have already ordered the book you recommended.

[Roman Mostazir]

And one more suggestion beside the above ones, stick to this forum. Browse the topics that interest you or post your problems here. See how others are coming up with various ways of doing things. You will be benefitted I am sure. I can vouche that I owe to this forum members a lot.

PS: Know the posting rules before hand in FAQ section specially use of -dataex- and -code delimiters-

[Fei Wang]

I'd like to add a small footnote to the wonderful advice above: I usually found students who complain of learning Stata happen to be short of statistical knowledge. Stata, like all the other daily softwares, can only do what we ask it to do, and cannot decide on behalf of us what should be done. I would suggest using Stata after consolidating the knowledge of statistics and other related fields.