SPSS For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Chapter 11. More Types of Graphs

In This Chapter

• Displaying histograms and area graphs

• Making use of pie charts and three kinds of boxplots

• Using dual-axis charts to combine variables with different ranges

SPSS has a number of ways to present data graphically; depending on the characteristics of your data, some graphs are more appropriate than others. Chapter 10 provides an overview of some more common graph types; this chapter discusses some lesser-known ones. Every example in these two chapters is as simple as possible to present a general idea of the types of charts you can choose. To use one with your data, you start by choosing a basic form and then continue by setting options to extend the form so it displays the information in the way that works best for your purposes. The Element Properties window, which appears automatically every time you generate a new chart, provides every possible option that applies to the chart you're building.

Tip

When you use Chart Builder, it's completely safe to drag and drop any variables you want to see in your graph; if the variable won't make sense there, the drop will fail. SPSS does you the kindness of figuring out what will and won't work. Also, no matter what you try to do while building a graph, your data will never be hurt.

Histograms

A histogram represents the number of items that appear within a range of values (or within a bin, statistically speaking — see Chapter 7). You can use a histogram to look at a graphic representation of the frequency ...