This short course is given by the chair of the statistics advisory panel of European Journal of Soil Science. In the course he will review some of the commonest statistical problems in papers submitted (and sometimes published) in the soil science literature. This will include problems of spatial dependence, correct specification of sampling and experimental designs, mismatch between designs and analytical methods, suboptimal use of principal components analysis, the misuse of multiple comparison methods, misapplication of regression, data transformation and common problems in geostatistics. However, the aim of the course is to be positive and to demonstrate how to avoid some of these problems with more robust and powerful analyses using code for the free R platform. This code will be made available to course participants.