Chapter 8 Overview

The rest of this workshop we’ll get into the details of ggplot and we will make many, many graphs.

We’ll first address different types of graphs that we can use for different purposes within our analysis. We’ll start with looking at distributions of single variables in chapter 9. Subsequently we delve into ways in which we can compare two or more distributions in chapter 10. We’ll do some assignments halfway in chapter 11. Then we’ll look at ways in which we can compare some group statistics in a graph, such as common bar plots, in chapter 12. After that, we’ll look at distinct ways of visualizing the association between two continuous variables in chapter 13. To end our tour through some of the different types of ggplot-graphs that exist, we look at ways of visualizing the association between two discrete variables in 14.

After we have some understanding of the different type of graphs on offer within ggplot, we’ll look into ways in which we can change the characteristics of the plots. We’ll start with the important idea of facets in chapter 15, that allow for a quick comparison of a particular graph across several groups (i.e., small multiples). Next, we’ll see how to add and change the titles and texts in the graph in chapter 16 and how we can change several aspects of the legend in chapter 17. We’ll see how we can change features of the axes in chapter 18 and how we can change thematic-characteristics of the graph in chapter 19. We’ll end this section with learning about how we can change the colours in chapter 20.

Near the end of this workshop, we’ll learn how to save our plots in chapter 21 and where to find help if we’re stuck in chapter 22. At the end we’ll return to our assignments in chapter 23. If there is time, we’ll also discuss some more advanced features of ggplot in chapter 24.