Gabor Grothendieck wrote: > You could put the numbers inside the bars in which > case it would not add to the height of the bar:
I think the Cleveland/Tufte prescription would be much different: horizontal dot charts with the numbers in the right margin. I do this frequently with great effect. The Hmisc dotchart2 function makes this easy. Frank > > x <- 1:5 > names(x) <- letters[1:5] > bp <- barplot(x) > text(bp, x - .02 * diff(par("usr")[3:4]), x) > > On 8/9/07, Frank E Harrell Jr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >>> Greg, I'm going to join issue with your here! Not that I'll go near >>> advocating "Excel-style" graphics (abominable, and the Patrick Burns >>> URL which you cite is remarkable in its restraint). Also, I'm aware >>> that this is potential flame-war territory -- again, I want to avoid >>> that too. >>> >>> However, this is the second time you have intervened on this theme >>> (previously Mon 6 August), along with John Kane on Wed 1 August and >>> again today on similar lines, and I think it's time an alternative >>> point of view was presented, to counteract (I hope usefully) what >>> seems to be a draconianly prescriptive approach to the presentation >>> of information. >> >> ---snip--- >> >> Ted, >> >> You make many excellent points and provide much food for thought. I >> still think that Greg's points are valid too, and in this particular >> case, bar plots are a bad choice and adding numbers at variable heights >> causes a perception error as I wrote previously. >> >> Thanks for your elaboration on this important subject. >> >> Frank >> >>> On 07-Aug-07 21:37:50, Greg Snow wrote: >>>> Generally adding the numbers to a graph accomplishes 2 things: >>>> >>>> 1) it acts as an admission that your graph is a failure >>> Generally, I disagree. Different elements in a display serve different >>> purposes, according to the psychological aspects of visual preception. >> . . . -- Frank E Harrell Jr Professor and Chair School of Medicine Department of Biostatistics Vanderbilt University ______________________________________________ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.