# Class 08: Grammar of Graphics

### Grammar of Graphics

As you have seen in examples already, we will be using the ggplot2 package for graphics in this course. The gg standards for the Grammar of Graphics, an influential theoretical structure for constructing statistical graphics created by Leland Wilkinson:

To build a statistical graphic, we will be building different layers that fit together to produce plots. Each layer requires three elements:

• a geometry describing what type of layer is being added; for example, this might be a point, line, or text geometry
• a dataset from which to build the layer
• a mapping from variables in the dataset into elements called aesthetics that control the way the plot looks

### Example with Hans Roslin’s data

To illustrate these points, let’s look at a subset of the data that Hans Roslin used in the video I showed on the first day of class. It contains just a single year of the data (2007).

Here is a plot similar to the one that Roslin use (I will show the code to construct it in just a few moments). Note that R writes the population key in scientific notation (2.5e+08 is the same as 2.5 time 10 to the power of eight).

Here, two of our three elements should be clear: the dataset is gapminder_2007 and the plot uses the point geometry (geom_point, which we have already seen). How do the aesthetic elements function? There are four visible aesthetics here, each matched to a particular variable in the dataset:

1. the variable gdp_per_cap is mapped to the x-axis
2. the variable life_exp is mapped to the y-axis
3. the variable continent is mapped to the color aesthetic
4. the variable pop is mapped to the size aesthetic

Notice how each of these is shown in the resulting plot.

### Syntax

How do we write the code that actually produces this plot? Here is the full code written out in its entirety.

Equivalently, we can leave off the names in the first row. R knows by default that the first parameter should be data, the second is the x-variable, and the third is the y-variable.

Let’s dive a bit deeper into what this plot is doing. The first line sets up a base plot by defining the dataset and indicating which variables are associated with the x- and y-axes. To this line we add a geometry that lets R know that we want to include points on this plot. Within the points, we further want to assign color to change with the continent and size to change with the population. Note that these latter elements must be named; otherwise R will not know exactly which variables are being mapped to which aesthetics.

Recall that previously we did not define the color or size of the points. Leaving this out simply forces R to retain the default size (1) and color (black):

In some cases we want to change an aesthetic to a different fixed value than the default. To do this, we include the specification of the aesthetic outside of the aes function. Here are points colored in blue:

It is possible to mix aesthetics so that some are mapped to variables and others to fixed values. Simply specify the fixed values outside of the aes function after the variable aesthetics. Here are small points with color denoting the continent:

You’ll notice that I put the color blue in quotes but left the size specification as-is. This comes back to the notion of a data type in R. A fixed color is specified by a character, which has to be contained in quotes, but a size is given by number, which cannot be. Note: this applies only to a fixed value, not when assigning something by a variable.

### Layers

The beauty of the grammar of graphics is that we can construct many plots by combining together simple layers. The geom_text is another layer type that puts a label in place of a point. It requires a new (non-optional) aesthetic called label that describes which variable is used for the label. Here we see it combined with the points layer:

Although it makes little sense here, we could also add a line plot to the graphic:

As we go through this material today, take particular note of the format for the next quiz.

### Prototype and References

Some students, depending on their learning style, find it easiest to learn from a prototype showing exactly how ggplot2 commands are structured. In the code below, anything in square brackets and captialised should be changed; other elements should generally be kept as-is:

If you would like more references, here is a cheat-sheet and online notes that extend what we have done today:

These cover much more than we have shown today, and you are only responsible for the notes here. However, you may find the exercises and examples useful if this material is new to you.

### Practice

We have covered a lot of new commands today. Practicing them is incredibly important to keeping up with this course. You will not learn how to do these properly without spending a reasonable amount of time practicing these skills outside of class. Download the lab08.Rmd file and work through the exercises. Upload your script (no need to include the HTML file) to GitHub ahead of the next class.