Since 2003, the Stata Journal has published Stata Tips on special issues in data analysis with Stata. Now Thirty-three Stata Tips compiles these useful guides into a compact tome for ease of reference. In keeping with the Stata spirit, Tips are from Stata users and StataCorp employees alike and will serve as guideposts for both new and experienced users.data management, statistics, graphics, Stata

H. Joseph Newton

Nicholas J. Cox

English

Research Papers in Economics

Editors’ Preface
The booklet you are reading reprints 33 Stata Tips from the Stata Journal, with thanks
to their original authors. We, the Journal editors, began publishing tips in 2003, begin-
ning with volume 3, issue 4. It pleases us now to introduce them in this booklet.
The Stata Journal publishes substantive and peer-reviewed articles ranging from
reports of original work to tutorials on statistical methods and models implemented in
Stata, and indeed on Stata itself. The original material we have published since 2001
includes special issues such as those on measurement error models (volume 3, number 4,
2003) and simulated maximum likelihood (volume 6, number 2, 2006).
Other features include regular columns on Stata (currently, “Speaking Stata” and
“Mata Matters”), book reviews, and announcements of software updates.
We are pleased by the external recognition that the Journal has achieved. In 2005,
it was added to two of Thomson Scientiﬁc’s citation indexes, the Science Citation Index
Expanded and the CompuMath Citation Index.
But back to Tips. There was little need for tips in the early days. Stata 1.0 was
released in 1985. The original program had 44 commands and its documentation totaled
175 pages. Stata 9, on the other hand, has more than 700 commands—including an
embedded matrix language called Mata—and Stata’s oﬃcial documentation now totals
more than 6,500 pages. Beyond that, the user community has added several hundred
more commands.
The pluses and the minuses of this growth are evident. As Stata expands, it is
increasingly likely that users’ needs can be met by available code. But at the same
time, learning how to use Stata and even learning what is available become larger and
larger tasks.
Tips are intended to help. The ground rules for Stata Tips, as found in the original
2003 statement, are laid out as the next item in this booklet.
The Tips grew from many discussions and postings on Statalist, at Users Group
meetings and elsewhere, which underscore a simple fact: Stata is now so big that it is
easy to miss even simple features that can streamline and enhance your sessions with
Stata. This applies not just to new users, who understandably may quake nervously
before the manual mountain, but also to longtime users, who too are faced with a mass
of new features in every release.
Tips have come from Stata users as well as StataCorp employees. Many discuss new
features of Stata, or features not documented fully or even at all. We hope that you
enjoy the Tips reprinted here and can share them with your fellow Stata users. If you
have tips that you would like to write, or comments on the kinds of tips that are helpful,
do get in touch with us, as we are eager to continue the series.
H. Joseph Newton, Editor
Nicholas J. Cox, Editor

Thirty-Three Stata Tips

http://stata-press.com/books/tips-edpreface.pdf

Thirty-Three Stata Tips

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Research Papers in Economics