Using R to create a dotplot with jittered x values

If you need to create a plot where you have a several groups of data that you want to distribute along the ‘y’ axis, but bin into one of several categories in x then you can do the following:

1) create a .csv file with your data in columns (you can use headers)

2) import the .csv file into R with: TEST <- read.table(“yourfile.csv”, sep=’,’, header=TRUE)

3) do the dotplot: dotplot(values ~ ind, data=stack(TEST), jitter.x=TRUE)

The important point here is the use of the “stack” function.  This converts vectors into factors; it also lets you create the type of dotplot where the data is plotted along ‘y’ while having the same ‘x’ value.

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