Catherine Klapperich
> How do you put error bars on histograms or bar plots? I am
> using Stata 8 in Windows.
I don't think either is supported as a standard option.
This could be a case of "not yet implemented" or
a case of "not yet approved". (Stata tacitly does not
approve many common practices, such as dropped shadows or
vibrating shadings.)
One common scientific practice is to show estimated
magnitudes as thick bars based at zero and estimated
uncertainty as thin bars around the estimate (sometimes
the lower part of the error bar is suppressed, in my
view very poor practice). One Stata user, who might not
want to be named in this connection, calls
the latter "detonator plots". Arguably, such plots give
a mixed visual signal for many purposes.
Without trying it, I would not want to guess how
easy it is to do this for yourself in Stata 8 at present
by superimposing different plots. When users get more access to
Stata's
graphics internal, one layer deeper than at present,
then it may become much easier.
Among user-written programs in nearby territory
are Roger Newson's -eclplot- and my own -ciplot-,
both downloadable from SSC.
Nick
[email protected]
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