R For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 16

Using Base Graphics

In This Chapter

Creating a basic plot in R

Changing the appearance of your plot

Saving your plot as a picture

In statistics and other sciences, being able to plot your results in the form of a graphic is often useful. An effective and accurate visualization can make your data come to life and convey your message in a powerful way.

R has very powerful graphics capabilities that can help you visualize your data. In this chapter, we give you a look at base graphics. It’s called base graphics, because it’s built into the standard distribution of R.

Creating Different Types of Plots

The base graphics function to create a plot in R is simply called plot(). This powerful function has many options and arguments to control all kinds of things, such as the plot type, line colors, labels, and titles.

The plot() function is a generic function (see Chapter 8), and R dispatches the call to the appropriate method. For example, if you make a scatterplot, R dispatches the call to plot.default(). The plot.default() function itself is reasonably simple and affects only ...