This book focuses on a specic sub-eld of machine learning called predictive modeling. Thisis the eld of machine learning that is the most useful in industry and the type of machinelearning that the R platform excels at facilitating. Unlike statistics, where models are usedto understand data, predictive modeling is laser focused on developing models that make themost accurate predictions at the expense of explaining why predictions are made. Unlike thebroader eld of machine learning that could feasibly be used with data in any format, predictivemodeling is primarily focused on tabular data (e.g. tables of numbers like a spreadsheet).This book was written around three themes designed to get you started and using R forapplied machine learning eectively and quickly. These three parts are as follows: