A general wisdom is that a picture paints a thousand words, and it is even more true in data analysis. Graphing is essential in exploring our data, and also a powerful way of illustrating the results of an analysis, and conveying our message.
This lecture introduces students to the basics of making graphs. The opportunities of graphing in Stata are limitless, even the last tiny part of a graph can be changed. We show here only the basic logic.
Case studies (at least partly) connected to this lecture:
This lecture uses the hotels-vienna.dta dataset.
After successfully completing the code in lecture07_graphs.do students should be able to:
- Understand the logic of graphing in Stata.
- Create fancy graphs and do the scaffolding.
Ideal overall time: 40 mins.
Type: quick practice, approx 15 mins
Your homework assignment is to reproduce Figure 8.9 on page 230 from the textbook.
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Asjad Naqvi has a great post on medium.com about graph tips for academic articles.
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There are some interesting intro material on the Stata webpage that can function as starting points: Visual overview for creating graphs, Publication-quality graphics, and Graph styles.
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The World Bank has a nice DIME Wiki page about visualization.
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SSCC has an intro module on visualizing, which unfortunately discusses the topic not with coding, but using the clicking method, although it is still helpful, as is offering an overview about the possibilities and the logic.
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Kevin Denny has a great paper about the basics of Stata graphs.
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Stata Press has a 744-pages-long book on graphing (online available and free of charge).
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You should also check the two cheat sheets (1 and 2) by the instructors of Geocenter.
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For advanced graphing read the posts of Asjad Naqvi via medium.com.