Taking a test drive

o Play with the menus and dialogs

. sysuse uslifeexp

. keep if year <= 1940

Load and prepare a dataset, say by clicking the two commands above.

Now, pull down the graphics menu and select a graph. I would
start with an "Easy graph", in particular
Graphics|Easy graphs|Scatter plot. Use your favorite dataset and begin
drawing graphs by selecting variables and setting options. Use the
submit button to draw graphs so that the dialog box stays up and you you
can make more changes. The tabs on the dialog box give you an overview of the
main objects on a graph and the items on each tab show the type of things you
can change.

Note that as you submit graphs to be drawn that the command to produce
the graph appears in the Results window. By changing things on the
dialog box and observing the changes in the command, you can learn much about
the graph command and its options.

When you tire of the "Easy" dialog boxes, graduate to
Graphics|Overlaid twoway graphs. Initially, ignore the Plot 2,
Plot 3, and Plot 4 tabs, and just notice how much more control you
have over the scatter, line, bar, fit, etc. that you
are graphing. Note also how much more control you have over the axes, the
titles, the captions, and the legends. Remember that as you submit
commands from this dialog box that you can see the resulting graph
command in the Results window.

Later, choose the Plot 2 tab and add a line, scatter, or
fit to your original plot - Plot 1. Change that new plot from
one "Type" (e.g., scatter or line) to another. Change how it
looks using the controls on the Plot 2 tab. Note that you can use the
"if:" qualifier to produce 2 or more plots from different subsamples. Look at
the Results window to see how multiple plots are produced using the
graph command.

Go back to the Graphics menu and select some other graph types. Note
that many of the tabs are the same as those from Overlaid twoway graphs
and that what you learned there applies equally to this new graph type.

Explore. Have fun.

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