From the course: Data Literacy: Exploring and Describing Data

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Box plots

Box plots

From the course: Data Literacy: Exploring and Describing Data

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Box plots

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- [Instructor] Box plots allow you to step back from your data a little bit. They let you get more perspective on a quantitative or continuous variable. So, instead of seeing the each individual point like you had with a dot plot, you get to break that dot plot down into just a few general components. And what that lets you do when you have it in a box plot is it makes it very easy to judge the symmetry of the distribution, and to determine whether there are outliers in the distribution. And that's what I use them for primarily. Now, when you look for outliers there's a few reasons you might want to do that. Those might be high-value cases. So, you might have customers who are particularly profitable for you, or you might have services that are in unusually high demand. You can also look for cases that need special attention. If something's an outlier maybe it hasn't been addressed properly. Also, there's quality control. Maybe you have an error in your process, you forgot to turn on…

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