Table Of Contents
Bar and Line Charts

AM will graph descriptive statistics as bar charts or line charts. This can happen in two ways:

  • From the graphics menu, you can select Bar Chart or Line Chart
  • After running some models, you can click on the completed run icon in the Completed Run Queue.

When running a chart from the graphics menu, some of the input needed to estimate the model depends on the model that needs to be estimated. For further details, please select the appropriate link below, depending on the type of data you are plotting:

Either way you request the chart, you will have the option of adjusting some of the graphical attributes.

When run from the menu, the Bar and Line charts offer a few additional options:

  • Show SE. This yes/no option will show (or hide) standard error bands on the bars.
  • Set continuous axis. Select "x-axis" if you want to flip the chart on its side.
  • Number of ticks on continuous axis. The system will put equally-spaced, labeled tick-marks on the continuous axis. This option tells it how many.
  • Specify axis minimum and maximum values, minumum value..., and maximum value... If set to "automatic" the system will set this to the minimum and maximum found in the data (or the quadrature range specified for the MML procedures). If set to manual, you must set the next two options. If the specified minimum value is greater than the minimum in the data, the system will use the minimum found in the data. If the specified maximum is less than the maximum found in the data, the system will use the maximum found in the data.
  • Specify decimal precision on continuous axis Usually, AM makes good default choices about the precision with which to represent axis labels. To use the default values, set this at "automatic," and the number under Decimal precision on continuous axis will be ignored. Otherwise, the number will specify the number of digits to the right of the decimal point.
  • Set grid lines.This places gridlines on the chart. The y-axis on a sectioned density plot includes a boxplot of the combined distribution (combined across groups, that is). The median and 25th and 75th percentiles can be represented as gridlines. Alternatively, grid lines can appear at each tick mark, or no grid lines can appear.
  • Set y-axis label size. AM presents the label of the y-axis written horizontally, because we are used to reading that way. This takes some space. This option allows users to adjust the amount of space allocate to the y-axis label.

Bar Charts

When creating these graphics, you should pay attention to the order in which you specify variables. If the graphic has a single dependent variable, the bars will be grouped according to the first independent variable specified. Graphs based on the Descriptive Statistics procedure allow more than one dependent variable. In these cases, the bars will be clustered so that the different variables appear in each cluster.

Line Charts

Line charts always put the first independent variable specified on the axis. Additional groupings are represented as different colored bars, with the specifics described in a legend.

You might also be interested in editing and saving graphics.