#Openoffice calc graph line of best fit series
Pattern recognition tells us that two months near the end of the series have the big numbers. However, it completely hides whatever is happening in the rest of the months. This is the simplest solution, and if you’re only interested in knowing about the outliers (Dec ’09 and Jan ’10) then it will do. There’s a few basic options:Ī bar chart with all data, including outliers, plotted on the same scale. For more complicated data sets, though, a graph is needed. People can see the numbers and interpret them, there aren’t too many numbers to make sense of and the table is very compact. How do we plot this data? First, for such a small data set, a simple table is the best approach. So suppose that we have some data like that at right, where we are interested in the patterns of smaller, individual values, but there are also a few extremely large values, or outliers. These two operations are distinct and complimentary, and it is through these two operations that the data’s story is told. Table look-up is where we explore details of values and names on a graph. Pattern perception is where we see the geometric patterns in a graph: groupings relative differences (larger/smaller) or trends (straight/curved or increasing/decreasing). Good data graphs let the data tell the story by revealing the patterns, rather than trying to impose patterns on the data.Īs William Cleveland discusses in The Elements of Graphing Data and his 1993 paper A Model for Studying Display Methods of Statistical Graphics, there are two basic visual operations that people employ when looking at and interpreting graphs: pattern perception and table look-up. While all solutions involve trade-offs for understanding and interpreting graphs, some solutions are better than others.ĭata graphs tell stories by revealing patterns in complex data.
It’s not the first time that I’ve come across this question, and I’ve seen a lot of answers, many of them really bad.
#Openoffice calc graph line of best fit how to
Recently posted a question about how to graph data when you have a lot of small values and a few larger values.
0 kommentar(er)
