Data Visualization in R for Researchers
Why this book exists
Great ggplot2 guides are everywhere. Do we really need another one?
This book is for researchers. It will not teach you endless customizations, or how to make your plots look “good.” It will teach you how to make plots that are readily understandable to your reader, are transparent about the underlying data, and fulfill the occasional odd journal requirement about legend placement or font serifs.
When creating a plot as a researcher, your job is to communicate your data and results. In this context, less is more, and simpler is better. Plain, grayscale plots are favored. Explanatory text is at a minimum or absent altogether. Your plot is meant to complement your writing, not serve as the main vehicle of communication.
How this book is organized
This book is taught as a three-hour workshop. The chapter on diagnostics is only briefly covered, as it is its own three-hour workshop.
The materials are laid out in an order that you can work straight through them, but you can also just refer to any section you need, provided that you have the prerequisite knowledge.
Chapter 2 discusses how ggplot turns your data into a plot, as well as the basic structure of a ggplot call.
Chapter 3 will teach you strategies for using plots to explore and gain insights int your data.
Chapter 4 covers saving plots to disk, and all the decisions that need to go into the size, file extension, and more.
Chapter 5 is focused on customizations needed when submitting a plot as a figure for publication.
Chapter 6 gives an introduction to visual tests of regression model assumptions. A complete guide can be found in Regression Diagnostics with R.
Chapter 7 is on plots of regression model estimates, to help both you as the researcher and your reader.