If you’re not convinced about that danger of using basic boxplot, please read this post that explains it in depth.
Fortunately, ggplot2 makes it a breeze to add invdividual observation on top of boxes thanks to the geom_jitter() function. This function shifts all dots by a random value ranging from 0 to size, avoiding overlaps.
Now, do you see the bimodal distribution hidden behind group B?
# Libraries
library(tidyverse)
library(hrbrthemes)
library(viridis)
# create a dataset
data <- data.frame(
name=c( rep("A",500), rep("B",500), rep("B",500), rep("C",20), rep('D', 100) ),
value=c( rnorm(500, 10, 5), rnorm(500, 13, 1), rnorm(500, 18, 1), rnorm(20, 25, 4), rnorm(100, 12, 1) )
)
# Plot
data %>%
ggplot( aes(x=name, y=value, fill=name)) +
geom_boxplot() +
scale_fill_viridis(discrete = TRUE, alpha=0.6) +
geom_jitter(color="black", size=0.4, alpha=0.9) +
theme_ipsum() +
theme(
legend.position="none",
plot.title = element_text(size=11)
) +
ggtitle("A boxplot with jitter") +
xlab("")
In case you’re not convinced, here is how the basic boxplot and the basic violin plot look like:
# Boxplot basic
data %>%
ggplot( aes(x=name, y=value, fill=name)) +
geom_boxplot() +
scale_fill_viridis(discrete = TRUE, alpha=0.6, option="A") +
theme_ipsum() +
theme(
legend.position="none",
plot.title = element_text(size=11)
) +
ggtitle("Basic boxplot") +
xlab("")
# Violin basic
data %>%
ggplot( aes(x=name, y=value, fill=name)) +
geom_violin() +
scale_fill_viridis(discrete = TRUE, alpha=0.6, option="A") +
theme_ipsum() +
theme(
legend.position="none",
plot.title = element_text(size=11)
) +
ggtitle("Violin chart") +
xlab("")
