Chapter 4

Displaying and
Summarizing
Quantitative Data

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.

Dealing With a Lot of Numbers…
 Summarizing the data will help us when we look
at large sets of quantitative data.
 Without summaries of the data, it’s hard to grasp
what the data tell us.
 The best thing to do is to make a picture…
 We can’t use bar charts or pie charts for
quantitative data, since those displays are for
categorical variables.

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Histograms: Displaying the Distribution of
Earthquake Magnitudes
 The chapter example discusses earthquake
magnitudes.
 First, slice up the entire span of values covered
by the quantitative variable into equal-width piles
called bins.
 The bins and the counts in each bin give the
distribution of the quantitative variable.

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Histograms: Displaying the Distribution
of Earthquake Magnitudes (cont.)
 A histogram plots
the bin counts as
the heights of bars
(like a bar
chart).
 It displays the
distribution at a
glance.
 Here is a histogram
of earthquake
magnitudes:
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 Histograms: Displaying the Distribution
of Earthquake Magnitudes (cont.)
 A relative frequency histogram displays the percentage of
cases in each bin instead of the count.
 In this way, relative

frequency histograms
are faithful to the
area principle.

 Here is a relative
frequency histogram of
earthquake magnitudes:

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Stem-and-Leaf Displays
 Stem-and-leaf displays show the distribution of a
quantitative variable, like histograms do, while
preserving the individual values.
 Stem-and-leaf displays contain all the information
found in a histogram and, when carefully drawn,
satisfy the area principle and show the
distribution.

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Stem-and-Leaf Example
 Compare the histogram and stem-and-leaf display for the
pulse rates of 24 women at a health clinic. Which
graphical display do you prefer?

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Constructing a Stem-and-Leaf Display
 First, cut each data value into leading digits
(“stems”) and trailing digits (“leaves”).
 Use the stems to label the bins.
 Use only one digit for each leaf—either round or
truncate the data values to one decimal place
after the stem.

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Dotplots
 A dotplot is a simple
display. It just places a
dot along an axis for
each case in the data.
 The dotplot to the right
shows Kentucky Derby
winning times, plotting
each race as its own
dot.
 You might see a dotplot
displayed horizontally or
vertically.

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Think Before You Draw, Again
 Remember the “Make a picture” rule?
 Now that we have options for data displays, you
need to Think carefully about which type of
display to make.
 Before making a stem-and-leaf display, a
histogram, or a dotplot, check the
 Quantitative Data Condition: The data are

values of a quantitative variable whose units

are known.

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Shape, Center, and Spread
 When describing a distribution, make sure to
always tell about three things: shape, center, and
spread…

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What is the Shape of the Distribution?
1. Does the histogram have a single, central bump
or several separated bumps?
2. Is the histogram symmetric?
3. Do any unusual features stick out?

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Bumps
1. Does the histogram have a single, central bump
or several separated bumps?
 Bumps in a histogram are called modes.
 A histogram with one main peak is dubbed
unimodal; histograms with two peaks are
bimodal; histograms with three or more peaks
are called multimodal.

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Bumps (cont.)
 A bimodal histogram has two apparent peaks:

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Bumps (cont.)
 A histogram that doesn’t appear to have any mode and
in which all the bars are approximately the same height
is called uniform:

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Symmetry
2. Is the histogram symmetric?
 If you can fold the histogram along a vertical line
through the middle and have the edges match
pretty closely, the histogram is symmetric.

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Symmetry (cont.)
 The (usually) thinner ends of a distribution are called
the tails. If one tail stretches out farther than the other,
the histogram is said to be skewed to the side of the
longer tail.
 In the figure below, the histogram on the left is said to
be skewed left, while the histogram on the right is said
to be skewed right.

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Anything Unusual?
3. Do any unusual features stick out?
 Sometimes it’s the unusual features that tell
us something interesting or exciting about the
data.
 You should always mention any stragglers, or
outliers, that stand off away from the body of
the distribution.
 Are there any gaps in the distribution? If so,
we might have data from more than one
group.

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Anything Unusual? (cont.)
 The following histogram has outliers—there are
three cities in the leftmost bar:

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Where is the Center of the Distribution?
 If you had to pick a single number to describe all
the data what would you pick?
 It’s easy to find the center when a histogram is
unimodal and symmetric—it’s right in the middle.
 On the other hand, it’s not so easy to find the
center of a skewed histogram or a histogram with
more than one mode.

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Center of a Distribution -- Median
 The median is the value with exactly half the data values
below it and half above it.
 It is the middle data

value (once the data

values have been
ordered) that divides
the histogram into
two equal areas
 It has the same units

as the data

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How Spread Out is the Distribution?
 Variation matters, and Statistics is about
variation.
 Are the values of the distribution tightly clustered
around the center or more spread out?
 Always report a measure of spread along with a
measure of center when describing a distribution
numerically.

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Spread: Home on the Range
 The range of the data is the difference between
the maximum and minimum values:
Range = max – min
 A disadvantage of the range is that a single
extreme value can make it very large and, thus,
not representative of the data overall.

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Spread: The Interquartile Range
 The interquartile range (IQR) lets us ignore
extreme data values and concentrate on the
middle of the data.
 To find the IQR, we first need to know what
quartiles are…

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Spread: The Interquartile Range (cont.)
 Quartiles divide the data into four equal sections.
 One quarter of the data lies below the lower

quartile, Q1
 One quarter of the data lies above the upper

quartile, Q3.
 The quartiles border the middle half of the data.

 The difference between the quartiles is the

interquartile range (IQR), so
IQR = upper quartile – lower quartile

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Spread: The Interquartile Range (cont.)
 The lower and upper quartiles are the 25th and 75th
percentiles of the data, so…
 The IQR contains the middle 50% of the values of the
distribution, as shown in figure:

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Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Slide 4 - 29
5-Number Summary
 The 5-number summary of a distribution reports its
median, quartiles, and extremes (maximum and minimum)
 The 5-number summary for the recent tsunami earthquake
Magnitudes looks like this:

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Summarizing Symmetric Distributions --
The Mean
 When we have symmetric data, there is an alternative
other than the median.
 If we want to calculate a number, we can average the
data.
 We use the Greek letter sigma to mean “sum” and write:

Total  y
y 
n n
The formula says that to find the
mean, we add up all the values of
the variable and divide by the
number of data values, n.

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Summarizing Symmetric Distributions --
The Mean (cont.)
 The mean feels like the center because it is the
point where the histogram balances:

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Mean or Median?
 Because the median considers only the order of values, it
is resistant to values that are extraordinarily large or small;
it simply notes that they are one of the “big ones” or “small
ones” and ignores their distance from center.
 To choose between the mean and median, start by looking
at the data. If the histogram is symmetric and there are no
outliers, use the mean.
 However, if the histogram is skewed or with outliers, you
are better off with the median.

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What About Spread? The Standard
Deviation
 A more powerful measure of spread than the IQR
is the standard deviation, which takes into
account how far each data value is from the
mean.
 A deviation is the distance that a data value is
from the mean.
 Since adding all deviations together would total

zero, we square each deviation and find an

average of sorts for the deviations.

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What About Spread? The Standard
Deviation (cont.)
 The variance, notated by s2, is found by summing
the squared deviations and (almost) averaging
them:
 y  y 2

s 2

n 1

 The variance will play a role later in our study, but

it is problematic as a measure of spread—it is
measured in squared units!

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What About Spread? The Standard
Deviation (cont.)
 The standard deviation, s, is just the square root
of the variance and is measured in the same units
as the original data.

 y  y 
2

s
n 1

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Calculating Standard Deviation

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Thinking About Variation
 Since Statistics is about variation, spread is an
important fundamental concept of Statistics.
 Measures of spread help us talk about what we
don’t know.
 When the data values are tightly clustered around
the center of the distribution, the IQR and
standard deviation will be small.
 When the data values are scattered far from the
center, the IQR and standard deviation will be
large.

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Tell -- Draw a Picture
 When telling about quantitative variables, start by
making a histogram or stem-and-leaf display and
discuss the shape of the distribution.

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Tell -- Shape, Center, and Spread
 Next, always report the shape of its distribution,
along with a center and a spread.
 If the shape is skewed, report the median and

IQR.
 If the shape is symmetric, report the mean and

standard deviation and possibly the median and

IQR as well.

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Tell -- What About Unusual Features?
 If there are multiple modes, try to understand why.
If you identify a reason for the separate modes, it
may be good to split the data into two groups.

 If there are any clear outliers and you are

reporting the mean and standard deviation, report
them with the outliers present and with the
outliers removed. The differences may be quite
revealing.
 Note: The median and IQR are not likely to be

affected by the outliers.

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What Can Go Wrong?
 Don’t make a histogram of a categorical variable—
bar charts or pie charts should be used for
categorical data.

 Don’t look for shape,

center, and spread
of a bar chart.

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What Can Go Wrong? (cont.)
 Don’t use bars in every display—save them for
histograms and bar charts.
 Below is a badly drawn plot and the proper histogram for
the number of juvenile bald eagles sighted in a collection
of weeks:

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What Can Go Wrong? (cont.)
 Choose a bin width appropriate to the data.
 Changing the bin width changes the

appearance of the histogram:

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What Can Go Wrong? (cont.)
 Don’t forget to do a reality check – don’t let the calculator
do the thinking for you.
 Don’t forget to sort the values before finding the median
or percentiles.
 Don’t worry about small differences when using different
methods.
 Don’t compute numerical summaries of a categorical
variable.
 Don’t report too many decimal places.
 Don’t round in the middle of a calculation.
 Watch out for multiple modes
 Beware of outliers
 Make a picture … make a picture . . . make a picture !!!
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What have we learned?
 We’ve learned how to make a picture for quantitative data
to help us see the story the data have to Tell.
 We can display the distribution of quantitative data with a
histogram, stem-and-leaf display, or dotplot.
 We’ve learned how to summarize distributions of
quantitative variables numerically.
 Measures of center for a distribution include the

median and mean.

 Measures of spread include the range, IQR, and

standard deviation.
 Use the median and IQR when the distribution is

skewed. Use the mean and standard deviation if the

distribution is symmetric.

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What have we learned? (cont.)
 We’ve learned to Think about the type of variable
we are summarizing.
 All methods of this chapter assume the data

are quantitative.
 The Quantitative Data Condition serves as a

check that the data are, in fact, quantitative.

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