GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION

GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION

One very simple but effective form of statistical analysis is to present the tabulated data with the help of
graphs and diagrams.

BASIC PRINCIPLES OF GRAPHS AND DIAGRAMS

1. Each diagram should have a short, suitable and self-explanatory title.
2. The graphs should be simple and well-defined.
3. The graphs should be completely self explanatory.
4. The origin, vertical scale, horizontal scale should be so chosen that a graph does not carry a false
impression about the nature of the data
5. Frequency or rate is usually represented on vertical scale, the variable or method of classification
on horizontal scale.

USES OF GRAPHS
1. It is useful in elucidating the main features of a set of data.
2. It is often valuable in suggesting an appropriate method of analysis and in explaining the
conclusions founded upon the analysis.
3. It can sometimes pin-point gross errors in statistical records.

DIFFENCE BETWEEN GRAPH AND DIAGRAM

Both are used as a mode of statistical investigation. However, there are some differences between these
two:
1. Graphs are usually drawn in graph paper, whereas diagram can construct in plane paper.
2. Graphs are helpful to have the idea of relationship between two correlated variables, whereas
diagram is used specially to represent the value of an attribute.
3. Graphs are usually used to depict the time series data, while diagram is not used for the same
purpose. It is used in depicting categorical and geographical data.
4. Graphs are more precise and accurate than the diagrams.
5. Graphs are helpful to indicate the further statistical analysis, while diagrams cannot do so.

LIMITATIONS OF GRAPHS AND DIAGRAMS

1. They may be misleading unless drawn and studied with care.
2. It is difficult to draw two or more directional diagram and also difficult to interpret such diagram.
3. The conclusions drawn from graphs should normally be regarded as tentative, and therefore, the
graphs are no substitute for more critical statistical analysis.

TYPES OF GRAPHS AND DIAGRAMS

The important graphs and diagrams which are used for presentation of statistical data are
i. Line Diagram
ii. Bar Diagram
iii. Pie Diagram
iv. Histogram
v. Pictogram
vi. Frequency Polygon
vii. Frequency Curve
viii. Cumulative Frequency Curve or Ogive
ix. Stem-and-leaf Plot
x. Box and Whisker Plot

For quick instance, the line diagram is used for time series data, the bar diagram and pie chart are used
for qualitative data and the rests are used for quantitative data

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 GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION

BAR DIAGRAM
A bar diagram, also known as bar chart, is a form of presentation in which the frequencies are presented
by rectangles usually separated along the horizontal axis and drawn as bars of convenient widths.
EXAMPLE
Let us consider the following data for constructing a bar diagram
Table 1: Health center visit data for constructing a pie diagram
Visit No. of person
Frequently 49
Occasionally 71
Rarely 24
Never 6
Total 152

The vertical bar diagram constructed from these data is shown in Figure 1 below:

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0
Frequently Occassionally Rarely Never

Figure 1: Vertical bar diagram for health center visit data

PIE CHART/DIAGRAM
The pie chart consists of a circle sub-divided by into sectors, whose areas are proportional to the various
parts into which the whole quantity is divided.
Before that, we form the relative frequency distribution (%) for this purpose and convert the percentage
values into angles. As a circle consists of 360° (degree), the whole quantity to be represented is equated
to 360°. For example, the angle in degree to category ‘frequently’ is arrived at as follows;
49
 360 = 117.6
150
And for the category occasionally;
71
 360 = 170.4
150
Other category values are obtained in a similar manner. The necessary computation is shown in the
Table below
Table 2: Health center visit data for constructing a pie diagram
Response Frequency Percent Relative Frequency Angles of The Sector
Frequent 49 32.7 117.6
Occasional 71 47.3 170.4
Rare 24 16.0 57.6
Never 6 4.0 14.4
Total 150 100.0 360.0

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 GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION

Never
4%

Rarely
Frequently 16%
33%
Occassionally
47%

Never Rarely Occassionally Frequently

Figure 2: Simple pie diagram displaying the data in Table 2.

HISTOGRAM
A histogram is constructed by placing the class boundaries on the horizontal axis of a graph and the
frequencies on the vertical axis. Each class is shown on the graph by drawing a rectangle whose base is
the class boundary and whose height is the corresponding frequency for the class.

Table 3: Frequency Distribution of Age of 20 people for constructing Histogram

Class Interval Frequency

20-30 2
30-40 4
40-50 4
50-60 5
60-70 3
70-80 1
80-90 0
90-100 1

Figure 3: A Histogram presenting the frequency distribution in Table3.

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 GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HISTOGRAM AND BAR DIAGRAM

1. Histogram is a two-dimensional diagram, while in bar diagram only length of the diagram is under
consideration (one dimensional).
2. In bar diagram all bars are drawn at equidistance, while bars of histogram are adjacent.
3. Bar diagram is used to represent the value of a qualitative variable or value against time period,
while histogram is used to represent the frequencies of quantitative variable.
4. In histogram, the area of a bar depends on width of the class and frequency of the class, while in
bar diagram, the area of a bar depends on the value of a level of qualitative variable.

STEM AND LEAF PLOT

A Stem and Leaf Plot is a special table where each data value is split into a "stem" (the first digit or digits)
and a "leaf" (usually the last digit).

Example
A random sample of 64 people were selected to take the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test. After each
person completed the test, they were assigned an intelligence quotient (IQ) based on their performance
on the test. The resulting 64 IQs are as follows:

Table 4: IQ score of 64 people

We could, of course, summarize the data using a histogram. One primary disadvantage of using a
histogram to summarize data is that the original data aren't preserved in the graph. A stem-and-leaf plot,
on the other hand, summarizes the data and preserves the data at the same time.

The basic idea behind a stem-and-leaf plot is to divide each data point into a stem and a leaf. We could
divide our first data point, 111, for example, into a stem of 11 and a leaf of 1; 85 into a stem of 8 and a
leaf of 5; 83 into a stem of 8 and a leaf of 3 and so on.

To create the plot then, we first create a column of numbers containing the ordered stems. Our IQ data
set produces stems 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14.

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 GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION
Stem Leaf

Figure 4: Stem and Leaf plot

FREQUENCY POLYGON

It is a diagram used to represent a frequency distribution. The mid-values of class intervals are plotted
along the X-axis and corresponding frequencies are plotted along the Y-axis. These latter points are then
joined by straight lines, thus forming with the X-axis is a polygon, is called frequency polygon. The
frequency polygon for the frequency distribution of expenditure of the elementary school of the students
shown in the table displayed in the figure below.

Table 5: Expenditure of the elementary school of the students

Class interval Mid-value Frequency
4.5-8.5 6.5 6
8.5-12.5 10.5 19
12.5-16.5 14.5 23
16.5-20.5 18.5 18
20.5-24.5 22.5 9
24.5-28.5 26.5 3
28.5-32.5 30.5 1
32.5-36.5 34.5 1

25

20
Frequency

15

10

0
2.5 6.5 10.5 14.5 18.5 22.5 26.5 30.5 34.5 38.5

Figure 5: Frequency polygon for data in the table above

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 GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION

CUMULATIVE FREQUENCY POLYGON or OGIVE

An ogive is based on cumulative frequency distribution. To arrive at a cumulative frequency distribution,
the frequencies are to be cumulated just by summing the class frequencies. Two types of cumulative
distributions are used to drawn an ogive. ‘less than type ogive’ and ‘more than type of ogive’

CONSTRUCTING OGIVE
A graph of the cumulative frequency distribution or cumulative relative frequency distribution is called
an ogive. To construct a less than type ogive, the upper-class limits (precisely the upper boundaries) are
put on the horizontal axis and cumulative frequencies are shown on the vertical axis. A point is then
plotted directly above upper each class limit at a height of corresponding to cumulative frequency at that
upper-class limit. One additional point is then plotted above the lower-class limit for first class at a height
of zero. These points are then connected by straight lines. The straight lines allow one to approximate
the cumulative frequency between the class limits by interpolating. The resulting graph is a less than type
ogive.
To construct a more than type ogive, a point is plotted against each lower-class limit at a height
corresponding to the cumulative frequency at that lower-class limit. As before, an additional point is to
be plotted above the upper-class limit for the terminal class at a height of zero. These points are then
connected by straight lines. The resulting graph is a more than type ogive.

EXAMPLE
The following table is constructed from data collected on the life length of 40 rats in years for a
laboratory experiment. Display the data by a less than type and a more than type ogive.

Table 6.1: Life length of 40 rats in years

Life length (in years) Number of Rats

1.45-1.95 2
1.95-2.45 1
2.45-2.95 4
2.95-3.45 15
3.45-3.95 10
3.95-4.45 5
4.45-4.95 3
Total 40

This table is constructed to draw the required ogives and the resulting ogives are sketched in Figures 6.1
and 6.2

The ogive or cumulative frequency polygon has the advantage of providing a convenient way to estimate
the median and the percentiles of a sample. In addition, it has the advantage that the number of items
between two values can be readily ascertained. The ogive allows seeing how many observations in a data
set fall at or below a given point on the scale. This is most useful when we have a distribution of scores
and we are interested in finding out how one score compares to the rest of the scores.

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 GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION

Table 6.2: Cumulative frequency distributions for less than and more than type ogives based on the rat
life data.

Less than type More than type

Age Cumulative Age Cumulative

Frequency Frequency
Less than 1.45 0 1.45 or more 40
Less than 1.95 2 1.95 or more 38
Less than 2.45 3 2.45 or more 37
Less than 2.95 7 2.95 or more 33
Less than 3.45 22 3.45 or more 18
Less than 3.95 32 3.95 or more 8
Less than 4.45 37 4.45 or more 3
Less than 4.95 40 4.95 or more 0

45
40
35
30
25
C.F

20
15
10
5
0
1.45 1.95 2.45 2.95 3.45 3.95 4.45 4.95
Class Interval
Figure 6.1: Less than type ogive for data in the Table 6.2

45
40
35
30
C.F

25
20
15
10
5
0
1.45 1.95 2.45 2.95 3.45 3.95 4.45 4.95
Class Interval
Figure 6.2: More than type ogive for data in Table 6.2

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 GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION

BOX AND WHISKER PLOT

This diagram is used to show the quartiles of the data. Quartile is the measure which divides the array
into 4 equal parts, and we have 3 quartiles, viz. Q1, Q2 and Q3,
Where,
𝑖 (𝑛 + 1)
𝑄𝑖 = 𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ 𝑜𝑏𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝑖𝑓 𝑛 𝑖𝑠 𝑜𝑑𝑑
4
1 𝑖𝑛 𝑖𝑛
= 𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒 𝑜𝑓 [ 𝑡ℎ + ( + 1) 𝑡ℎ] 𝑜𝑏𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝑖𝑓 𝑛 𝑖𝑠 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛
2 4 4

The value of Q1 and Q3 are plotted and box is drawn parallel to the horizontal axis, where values of the
variable are shown in the horizontal axis. The box is divided at the point of value of Q2. The two ends of
the box are extended to the lower and upper limit of the values. These extended lines are called Whisker.

Briefly, A box-and-whisker plot or boxplot is a diagram based on the five-number summary of a data set.

FIVE-NUMBER SUMMARY

The five-number summary of a data set consists of the five numbers determined by computing the
minimum, Q1, median, Q3, and maximum value of the data set.

EXAMPLE
Mr. X works at a computer store. He also recorded the number of sales he made each month. In the past
11 months, he sold the following numbers of computers:
51, 17, 25, 39, 7, 49, 62, 41, 20, 43, 13.

(i) Give a five-number summary of Mr. X sales.

(ii) Make a box and whisker plot for Mr. X sales.

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