R help - Oct 2007 - Graphics and LaTeX documents with the same font - multiple y-axes

Well,
 
I agree that plots with multiple y-axes can be very confusing but .... i am not
sure that always they are also misleading .... One time i was asked to make a 2
y-axes plot, one y axes was for elevation (heights in meters) and one for
rugosity (values between 1 and 2 - unitless). The idea was to visualize that for
a more complex profile the rugosity is higher than for a flatter terrain. A
correlation coefficient between elevation and rugosity does not show anything,
although depending which formula you use for calculating rugosity, it can nicely
correlate with slope. Rugosity is a measure of the complexity of the terrain but
is quite independent of elevation.
 
I am not sure if this example meets your approval, but i don't think it is
misleading ;-)
 
Monica
_______________________________________________________________

Message: 49Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2007 12:13:46 -0500From: "hadley wickham"
<h.wickham@gmail.com>Subject: Re: [R] Graphics and LaTeX documents with
the same fontTo: "Frank E Harrell Jr"
<f.harrell@vanderbilt.edu>Cc: R-help
<r-help@stat.math.ethz.ch>Message-ID:<f8e6ff050709281013i7209b684r63aa0d8fcd69d4ef@mail.gmail.com>Content-Type:
text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > Yes there is harm. But to make bold lines,
easy to read titles is fine.> See the spar function in>
http://biostat.mc.vanderbilt.edu/SgraphicsHints for a starter. Also see> the
setps, ps.slide, and setpdf functions in the Hmisc package. I was interested to
see that you have code for drawing scatterplotswith multiple y-axes. As far as I
know the only legitimate use for adouble-axis plot is to confuse or mislead the
reader (and this is nota very ethical use case). Perhaps you have a
counter-example? Hadley
_________________________________________________________________


	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

It may not be misleading, but does it really help you understand the
problem more than a scatterplot of rugosity vs. elevation would?

Hadley

On 10/1/07, Monica Pisica <pisicandru at hotmail.com>
wrote:
>
>  Well,
>
>  I agree that plots with multiple y-axes can be very confusing but .... i
am
> not sure that always they are also misleading .... One time i was asked to
> make a 2 y-axes plot, one y axes was for elevation (heights in meters) and
> one for rugosity (values between 1 and 2 - unitless). The idea was to
> visualize that for a more complex profile the rugosity is higher than for a
> flatter terrain. A correlation coefficient between elevation and rugosity
> does not show anything, although depending which formula you use for
> calculating rugosity, it can nicely correlate with slope. Rugosity is a
> measure of the complexity of the terrain but is quite independent of
> elevation.
>
>  I am not sure if this example meets your approval, but i don't think
it is
> misleading ;-)
>
>  Monica
> _______________________________________________________________
>
>  Message: 49
> Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2007 12:13:46 -0500
> From: "hadley wickham" <h.wickham at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [R] Graphics and LaTeX documents with the same font
> To: "Frank E Harrell Jr" <f.harrell at vanderbilt.edu>
> Cc: R-help <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch>
> Message-ID:
> <f8e6ff050709281013i7209b684r63aa0d8fcd69d4ef at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> > Yes there is harm. But to make bold lines, easy to read titles is
fine.
> > See the spar function in
> >
> http://biostat.mc.vanderbilt.edu/SgraphicsHints
> for a starter. Also see
> > the setps, ps.slide, and setpdf functions in the Hmisc package.
>
> I was interested to see that you have code for drawing scatterplots
> with multiple y-axes. As far as I know the only legitimate use for a
> double-axis plot is to confuse or mislead the reader (and this is not
> a very ethical use case). Perhaps you have a counter-example?
>
> Hadley
>
>
>
> ________________________________
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> out!

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