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Re: st: Bar graph


From   Nick Cox <[email protected]>
To   "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Subject   Re: st: Bar graph
Date   Tue, 4 Jun 2013 16:07:54 +0100

It would perhaps be more interesting to spell out why I think this is
often a poor kind of graph.

As so often happens, the popularity of a graph bears essentially no
relationship to its utility. For example, people have been explaining
at length for a century or so that pie charts are  a bad idea but it
doesn't seem to have had much effect. Perhaps it is time for satire,
not logic: see

http://eagerpies.com/

The objection to pyramids is this. So, you want to compare values for
males or females (or whatever), but a pyramid design requires you to
pick up one bar and mentally superimpose it on another. I don't think
we are very good at this on the whole.

In demography, this is especially absurd, because very often the
numbers of males and females are similar, yet differences of the order
of 1% can be interesting and important.

Better designs are to

1. Superimpose directly, e.g. using -graph dot-.

2. Calculate the difference (or ratio) and look at that directly.


Nick
[email protected]


On 4 June 2013 15:43, Nick Cox <[email protected]> wrote:
> I wrote a program -slideplot- (SSC) a while back.
>
> I am no longer fond of this approach, so have not really developed it
> since.  But the program is still lurking there, heedless of my lack of
> affection.
>
> An overarching comment is that if -graph hbar- gets awkward, you
> should switch to -twoway rbar-.
> Nick
> [email protected]
>
>
> On 4 June 2013 15:19, Jörg Eulenberger <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Statalisters,
>> i want to draw a graph like a Agepyramid to compare two groups, like this:
>> http://www.martensville.ca/images/pages/N211/age%20pyramid.jpg
>>
>>  But i don't want on the left side the Agegroups. I need on the left
>> side different Items.  Each row should show the values of one item, on
>> the one side the value of man and on the otherside the value for woman.
>>
>> The Graph i want is on page 23:
>> http://wcms.uzi.uni-halle.de/download.php?down=13415&elem=2248245
>>
>> Know every one a solution or a graph command?
>> Thanks a lot,
>> Jörg
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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