Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Scrawl plots, and letter and bletter strips

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:6462636
Data from a bivariate distribution is often graphically presented by using a scatter plot. Adding a suitable depiction of the marginal data distributions to the edges of the scatter plot allows interesting features of the marginal data distributions to be seen alongside the original bivariate data. We propose providing these marginal depictions by a modification of Quantile-Quantile plots (Qq plots) we call scrawl plots. We also propose adding a strip or axis showing location of the letter values, or the broadened letter values. Since scrawl plots are modified QQ plots they inherit useful features of QQ plots; these include information about the shape of the marginal distribution, the presence and type of skewness, the presence of heavy tails, gaps and ties in the ordered data, appearances of bimodality or high shoulders, and assumptions of normality. This type of information is often either absent or depicted poorly, both in univariate competitors to the QQ plot and in the basic scatter plot.
Research Organization:
Princeton Univ., NJ (USA). Dept. of Statistics
DOE Contract Number:
AC02-81ER10841
OSTI ID:
6462636
Report Number(s):
DOE/ER/10841-14; ON: DE85001409
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English