Introduction to Dotplots

What you’ll learn to do: Describe the distribution of quantitative data using a dotplot.

When we conduct statistical experiments, we often work with large tables that present each individual’s information.  To analyze the data, we look to summarize information and patterns about the group as a whole, not just on the individual level.  A dotplot is a simple and powerful tool to display the distribution of the data: showing the center, spread, skew, and possible outliers.  In this next section, we shall see how to construct and interpret dotplots as well as build basic vocabulary to talk about the distribution (aka shape) of the data.