Exploratory data analysis

In statistics, exploratory data analysis (EDA) is an approach of analyzing data sets to summarize their
main characteristics, often using statistical graphics and other data visualization methods. A statistical
model can be used or not, but primarily EDA is for seeing what the data can tell beyond the formal
modeling and thereby contrasts with traditional hypothesis testing, in which a model is supposed to be
selected before the data is seen. Exploratory data analysis has been promoted by John Tukey since 1970
to encourage statisticians to explore the data, and possibly formulate hypotheses that could lead to new
data collection and experiments. EDA is different from initial data analysis (IDA),[1][2] which focuses
more narrowly on checking assumptions required for model fitting and hypothesis testing, and handling
missing values and making transformations of variables as needed. EDA encompasses IDA.

Overview
Tukey defined data analysis in 1961 as: "Procedures for analyzing data, techniques for interpreting the
results of such procedures, ways of planning the gathering of data to make its analysis easier, more
precise or more accurate, and all the machinery and results of (mathematical) statistics which apply to
analyzing data."[3]

Exploratory data analysis is a technique to analyze and investigate a dataset and summarize its main
characteristics. A main advantage of EDA is providing the visualization of data after conducting analysis.

Tukey's championing of EDA encouraged the development of statistical computing packages, especially
S at Bell Labs.[4] The S programming language inspired the systems S-PLUS and R. This family of
statistical-computing environments featured vastly improved dynamic visualization capabilities, which
allowed statisticians to identify outliers, trends and patterns in data that merited further study.

Tukey's EDA was related to two other developments in statistical theory: robust statistics and
nonparametric statistics, both of which tried to reduce the sensitivity of statistical inferences to errors in
formulating statistical models. Tukey promoted the use of five number summary of numerical data—the
two extremes (maximum and minimum), the median, and the quartiles—because these median and
quartiles, being functions of the empirical distribution are defined for all distributions, unlike the mean
and standard deviation. Moreover, the quartiles and median are more robust to skewed or heavy-tailed
distributions than traditional summaries (the mean and standard deviation). The packages S, S-PLUS, and
R included routines using resampling statistics, such as Quenouille and Tukey's jackknife and Efron 's
bootstrap, which are nonparametric and robust (for many problems).

Exploratory data analysis, robust statistics, nonparametric statistics, and the development of statistical
programming languages facilitated statisticians' work on scientific and engineering problems. Such
problems included the fabrication of semiconductors and the understanding of communications networks,
both of which were of interest to Bell Labs. These statistical developments, all championed by Tukey,
were designed to complement the analytic theory of testing statistical hypotheses, particularly the
Laplacian tradition's emphasis on exponential families.[5]
Development
John W. Tukey wrote the book Exploratory
Data Analysis in 1977.[6] Tukey held that too
much emphasis in statistics was placed on
statistical hypothesis testing (confirmatory
data analysis); more emphasis needed to be
placed on using data to suggest hypotheses to
test. In particular, he held that confusing the
two types of analyses and employing them on
the same set of data can lead to systematic
bias owing to the issues inherent in testing
hypotheses suggested by the data.

The objectives of EDA are to:

Data science process flowchart
Enable unexpected discoveries in the
data
Suggest hypotheses about the causes of observed phenomena
Assess assumptions on which statistical inference will be based
Support the selection of appropriate statistical tools and techniques
Provide a basis for further data collection through surveys or experiments[7]
Many EDA techniques have been adopted into data mining. They are also being taught to young students
as a way to introduce them to statistical thinking.[8]

Techniques and tools

There are a number of tools that are useful for EDA, but EDA is characterized more by the attitude taken
than by particular techniques.[9]

Typical graphical techniques used in EDA are:

Box plot
Histogram
Multi-vari chart
Run chart
Pareto chart
Scatter plot (2D/3D)
Stem-and-leaf plot
Parallel coordinates
Odds ratio
Targeted projection pursuit
Heat map
Bar chart
Horizon graph
 Glyph-based visualization methods such as PhenoPlot[10] and Chernoff faces
Projection methods such as grand tour, guided tour and manual tour
Interactive versions of these plots
Dimensionality reduction:

Multidimensional scaling
Principal component analysis (PCA)
Multilinear PCA
Nonlinear dimensionality reduction (NLDR)
Iconography of correlations
Typical quantitative techniques are:

Median polish
Trimean
Ordination

History
Many EDA ideas can be traced back to earlier authors, for example:

Francis Galton emphasized order statistics and quantiles.

Arthur Lyon Bowley used precursors of the stemplot and five-number summary (Bowley
actually used a "seven-figure summary", including the extremes, deciles and quartiles, along
with the median—see his Elementary Manual of Statistics (3rd edn., 1920), p. 62[11]– he
defines "the maximum and minimum, median, quartiles and two deciles" as the "seven
positions").
Andrew Ehrenberg articulated a philosophy of data reduction (see his book of the same
name).
The Open University course Statistics in Society (MDST 242), took the above ideas and merged them
with Gottfried Noether's work, which introduced statistical inference via coin-tossing and the median test.

Example
Findings from EDA are orthogonal to the primary analysis task. To illustrate, consider an example from
Cook et al. where the analysis task is to find the variables which best predict the tip that a dining party
will give to the waiter.[12] The variables available in the data collected for this task are: the tip amount,
total bill, payer gender, smoking/non-smoking section, time of day, day of the week, and size of the party.
The primary analysis task is approached by fitting a regression model where the tip rate is the response
variable. The fitted model is

(tip rate) = 0.18 - 0.01 × (party size)

which says that as the size of the dining party increases by one person (leading to a higher bill), the tip
rate will decrease by 1%, on average.

However, exploring the data reveals other interesting features not described by this model.
 Histogram of tip amounts Histogram of tip amounts Scatterplot of tips Scatterplot of tips
where the bins cover $1 where the bins cover vs. bill. Points vs. bill separated
increments. The $0.10 increments. An below the line by payer gender
distribution of values is interesting phenomenon correspond to tips and smoking
skewed right and is visible: peaks occur at that are lower than section status.
unimodal, as is common the whole-dollar and half- expected (for that Smoking parties
in distributions of small, dollar amounts, which is bill amount), and have a lot more
non-negative quantities. caused by customers points above the variability in the
picking round numbers as line are higher tips that they
tips. This behavior is than expected. We give. Males tend
common to other types of might expect to to pay the (few)
purchases too, like see a tight, higher bills, and
gasoline. positive linear the female non-
association, but smokers tend to
instead see be very
variation that consistent
increases with tip tippers (with
amount. In three
particular, there conspicuous
are more points exceptions
far away from the shown in the
line in the lower sample).
right than in the
upper left,
indicating that
more customers
are very cheap
than very
generous.

What is learned from the plots is different from what is illustrated by the regression model, even though
the experiment was not designed to investigate any of these other trends. The patterns found by exploring
the data suggest hypotheses about tipping that may not have been anticipated in advance, and which
could lead to interesting follow-up experiments where the hypotheses are formally stated and tested by
collecting new data.

Software
JMP, an EDA package from SAS Institute.
KNIME, Konstanz Information Miner – Open-Source data exploration platform based on
Eclipse.
Minitab, an EDA and general statistics package widely used in industrial and corporate
settings.
Orange, an open-source data mining and machine learning software suite.
 Python, an open-source programming language widely used in data mining and machine
learning.
R, an open-source programming language for statistical computing and graphics. Together
with Python one of the most popular languages for data science.
TinkerPlots an EDA software for upper elementary and middle school students.
Weka an open source data mining package that includes visualization and EDA tools such
as targeted projection pursuit.

See also
Anscombe's quartet, on importance of exploration
Data dredging
Predictive analytics
Structured data analysis (statistics)
Configural frequency analysis
Descriptive statistics

References
1. Chatfield, C. (1995). Problem Solving: A Statistician's Guide (2nd ed.). Chapman and Hall.
ISBN 978-0412606304.
2. Baillie, Mark; Le Cessie, Saskia; Schmidt, Carsten Oliver; Lusa, Lara; Huebner, Marianne;
Topic Group "Initial Data Analysis" of the STRATOS Initiative (2022). "Ten simple rules for
initial data analysis" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8870512). PLOS
Computational Biology. 18 (2): e1009819. Bibcode:2022PLSCB..18E9819B (https://ui.adsab
s.harvard.edu/abs/2022PLSCB..18E9819B). doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009819 (https://doi.or
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4. Becker, Richard A., A Brief History of S (https://web.archive.org/web/20150723044213/http://
www2.research.att.com/areas/stat/doc/94.11.ps), Murray Hill, New Jersey: AT&T Bell
Laboratories, archived from the original (http://www2.research.att.com/areas/stat/doc/94.11.
ps) (PS) on 2015-07-23, retrieved 2015-07-23, "... we wanted to be able to interact with our
data, using Exploratory Data Analysis (Tukey, 1971) techniques."
5. Morgenthaler, Stephan; Fernholz, Luisa T. (2000). "Conversation with John W. Tukey and
Elizabeth Tukey, Luisa T. Fernholz and Stephan Morgenthaler" (https://doi.org/10.1214%2Fs
s%2F1009212675). Statistical Science. 15 (1): 79–94. doi:10.1214/ss/1009212675 (https://d
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doi:10.1037/001949 (https://doi.org/10.1037%2F001949).
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2F00031305.1980.10482706).
10. Sailem, Heba Z.; Sero, Julia E.; Bakal, Chris (2015-01-08). "Visualizing cellular imaging data
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nlm.nih.gov/25569359).
11. Elementary Manual of Statistics (3rd edn.,
1920)https://archive.org/details/cu31924013702968/page/n5
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Bibliography
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Systematic Approach. Springer. ISBN 3-540-25994-5
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Lawrence) (2007-12-12). Interactive and Dynamic Graphics for Data Analysis: With R and
GGobi. Springer. ISBN 9780387717616.
Cook, D. and Swayne, D.F. (with A. Buja, D. Temple Lang, H. Hofmann, H. Wickham, M.
Lawrence) (2007-12-12). Interactive and Dynamic Graphics for Data Analysis: With R and
GGobi. Springer. ISBN 9780387717616.
Hoaglin, D C; Mosteller, F & Tukey, John Wilder (Eds) (1985). Exploring Data Tables, Trends
and Shapes. ISBN 978-0-471-09776-1.
Hoaglin, D C; Mosteller, F & Tukey, John Wilder (Eds) (1983). Understanding Robust and
Exploratory Data Analysis. ISBN 978-0-471-09777-8.
Young, F. W. Valero-Mora, P. and Friendly M. (2006) Visual Statistics: Seeing your data with
Dynamic Interactive Graphics. Wiley ISBN 978-0-471-68160-1 Jambu M. (1991) Exploratory
and Multivariate Data Analysis. Academic Press ISBN 0123800900
S. H. C. DuToit, A. G. W. Steyn, R. H. Stumpf (1986) Graphical Exploratory Data Analysis.
Springer ISBN 978-1-4612-9371-2
Hoaglin, D C; Mosteller, F & Tukey, John Wilder (Eds) (1985). Exploring Data Tables, Trends
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9371-2

External links
Carnegie Mellon University – free online course on Probability and Statistics, with a module
on EDA (https://oli.cmu.edu/courses/free-open/statistics-course-details/)
• Exploratory data analysis chapter: engineering statistics handbook (https://www.itl.nist.gov/
div898/handbook/eda/eda.htm)

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