Drawing univariate colored dot plots with geom_dotplot()

Univariate dot plots account for very simple and very objective visualizations. They can represent either continuous or discrete variables and are a good way to display how small samples are distributed. These plots are also an alternative to histograms, specially when there is only very few observations.

For the this recipe, we're going to use continuous data in order to explain how to manage the binwidth parameter whenever calling for a ggplot2 dot plot. There are two things that are good to know about dot plots breed using ggplot2::geom_dotplot(). First thing is that these plots are very sensible to plot measures (height and width). Second is that the y-axis hardly is meaningful. Now let's get to know our data.

Getting ready

To demonstrate how to plot univariate dot plots using geom_dotplot(), the data to be used will come from the DAAG package. Data set name is anesthetic and it's telling if a patient moved (move) or not when an incision...