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Also called the box plots, see: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Box-and-WhiskerPlot.html Many other excellent references can be found on the internet. The intent is to visually show graphically the mean (or median) of the data and the variability of data in terms of first quartile (Q1) and third quartile (Q3). Typically, it is applicable when there is sufficient and related data for a particular interval of time and the variability (range) of this data is of interest. The focus in generally is a time trend in the data. Changes in Stock Market prices or other economic/ financial analyses can use box plots. An example can be the selling price of automobiles per month because perhaps the median price is going down, but the high priced cars (Q3) is going up.
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Can box and whisker plots have intervals?
Yes, I believe they can.
How do you create a parallel box-and- whisker plots?
Parallel box and whisker plots are regular box and whisker plots, but drawn "one-above-the other" on the piece of paper. To enable to do this easily, draw an x-axis which is big enough for the largest value in the data, and small enough for the smallest value in the data (in the entire collection of data). Plot each box-and-whisker diagram below each other.
Who uses box and whisker plots?
More people in different professions are finding use for box and whiskers plots. It can be used very effectively in time series analysis, which may include engineers, economists, earth scientists, statistician, social sciences and medicine, to name a few professions. Stock market analysis using the open, hi, low & close format as used in Excel is not really the same, but it does show the range of the values for a stock, and relavent values. Excel (by Microsoft) does not have box and whisker plots, but there are many companies selling add in programs to make these plots. I use the Matlab program, which has the capabilities to make box and whisker plots. See related links.
What does it mean when the left whisker is longer than the right whisker in box plots?
It means that the smaller value (in the lowest quartile) are more spread out than larger values.
How do you use a box and whisker plot?
Box and whisker plots are used to give a visual indication of where quartiles and highest/lowest values fall, so they're useful for visually comparing various sets of data. The "whisker" on the left extends to the lowest value in the data range (the left-most point). The first edge of the "box" indicates the lower quartile, the middle line in the box represents the median quartile, and the upper edge of the box represents the 3rd quartile. The "whisker" on the right extends to the highest value in the data set. Clearly when using many box and whisker plots, and comparing them to each other, it helps greatly if you use the same scale on each plot. Sometimes it may be decided that your lowest/highest data values are "outliers" (anomalous results), in which case they are still included in the box and whisker plot, but they should be demarcated by a hollow circle wherever the outlier is deemed to be.
