st: RE: Graphing the median of a list of variables

["Nick Cox" <n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk>]

No; I would use -collapse- first. 

collapse (p50) question*, by(year) 

After that, it's just a -line- plot. I'd put year on the x axis; any
other design may seem less intuitive to your readership. 

By the way, even though the data are Likert scales, in my experience
means in practice often do a much better job of summarising level
(regardless of measurement theory). 

Nick 
n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk 

Jeremy Voros

Stata newbie here with a question I'm having trouble finding an answer
for. I would like to create a line graph with variables along the x-axis
and their median on the y-axis, with a different line for each variable
based on the cohort year. Here's the details:

My database of likert-scale survey data looks basically like this:

|      id     |     year     |     question1     |      question2     |
question3     |     etc...
|      5      |     1999     |         1         |          4         |
3         |            
|      5      |     2001     |         3         |          4         |
2         |
|      6      |     1999     |         3         |          5         |
4         |


So ultimately I'd like a graph with question1, question2...questionX
along the x-axis, and the median of each variable on the y-axis, with a
different line for each year.

I feel like it should involve tabstat or reshape somehow, but can't
manage to work it out. Any help appreciated.


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