Most of us first encountered STATA in an Econometrics class, where we were given cleaned datasets and detailed do-files. Using STATA was merely a mechanical process of cutting and pasting. The goal of these computer sessions was to interpret regression results, rather than to learn STATA.

So when I wrote my first quantitative essay with original data, I did all the analysis interactively without using do-files. It was not until my first RA job that I realized all the time I spent typing cautiously on the STATA command window (knowing there is no ‘undo’ in STATA) was utterly inefficient. Looking back, I even admit that my first ever merge was done semi-manually. Weeks of tedious manual work could have been done in just one day, if I had known how to use STATA.

Here are some very helpful STATA tutorial pages from which I learned how to use STATA properly. I hope these links can help you avoid a detour like the one I took.