The Grammar of Graphics (Statistics and Computing) |  | Author: Leland Wilkinson
Creators: D. Wills, D. Rope, A. Norton, R. Dubbs
Publisher: Springer
List Price: $89.95
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Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 163679
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 2nd
Pages: 694
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.6
ISBN: 0387245448
Dewey Decimal Number: 001.4226
EAN: 9780387245447
ASIN: 0387245448
Publication Date: July 15, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
This book was written for statisticians, computer scientists, geographers, researchers, and others interested in visualizing data. It presents a unique foundation for producing almost every quantitative graphic found in scientific journals, newspapers, statistical packages, and data visualization systems. While the tangible results of this work have been several visualization software libraries, this book focuses on the deep structures involved in producing quantitative graphics from data. What are the rules that underlie the production of pie charts, bar charts, scatterplots, function plots, maps, mosaics, and radar charts? Those less interested in the theoretical and mathematical foundations can still get a sense of the richness and structure of the system by examining the numerous and often unique color graphics it can produce. The second edition is almost twice the size of the original, with six new chapters and substantial revision. Much of the added material makes this book suitable for survey courses in visualization and statistical graphics. "This fascinating book deconstructs the process of producing graphics and in doing so raises many fascinating questions on the nature and representation of information...This second edition is almost twice the size of the original, with six new chapters and substantial revisions." Short Book Reviews of the International Statistical Institute, December 2005 "When the first edidtion of this book appeared in 2000 it was much praised. I called it a tour de force of the highest order. (Wainer, 2001), Edward Wegman (2000) argued that it was destined to become a classic. Now, six years later this very fine book has been much improved." Howard Wainer for Psychometrika "...The second edition is an impressive expansion beyond a quite remarkable first edition. The text remains dense and even more encyclopedic, but it is a pleasure to read, whether a novice or an expert in graphics...this book is a bargain...The second edition is a must-have volume for anyone interested in graphics." Thomas E. Bradstreet for the Journal of the American Statistical Association, December 2006 "I find myself still thinking about the book and its ideas, several weeks after I finished reading it. I love that kind of book." Mark Bailey for Techometrics, Vol. 49, No. 1, February 2007 "Warts and all, The Grammar of Graphics is a richly rewarding work, an outstanding achievement by one of the leaders of statistical graphics. Seek it out." Nicholas J. Cox for the Journal of Statistical Software, January 2007
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| Customer Reviews:
 The R package "ggplot2" June 10, 2009
Jeong Jong Seob (Pusan, South Korea)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is closely related with the upcoming new book "ggplot2" by Hadley Wickham. "ggplot2" is an R package for producing elegant graphics based on the Grammar of Graphics.
 For a select few, it is a fascinating read January 1, 2009
Keith McCormick (North Carolina, USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is an unusual book. It should be of interest to those who have to display data in graphic form, but it is not a typical book of that kind. A subset of those who enjoy Tufte (The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition) or Cleveland (The Elements of Graphing Data, Visualizing Data) will also enjoy this. This book does not attempt to coach you on how to make good graphics, but if that is your goal it attacks a related, important aspect: rules that connect the data and the graphic. Obviously then, it might be of great interest to computer scientists and theoreticians. The grammar described in the book is also object oriented in design which helps to make the code quite elegant. In my instance, I am a "power-user" of the SPSS statistics software package, and the ideas in this book have been partially implemented in SPSS since around 2005 (Version 14.0). This is absolutely not a user's guide or a how-to manual for using SPSS. If, however, you already have a working knowledge of the latest SPSS graphics and its related programming language then this book will put that whole approach in context, and massively increase your understanding of the technology "behind the scenes". Many technical audiences might benefit regardless of their using or not using SPSS Statistics.
Unlike Tufte, you will find no hand drawn graphics, or illustrations crafted in Adobe illustrator - they can be both beautiful and effective but such graphics would not belong in this book. All of the graphics here are created using a computer and a grammatical description and arise directly out of a data set. Making a graphic elegant and clear is the work of the designer, the purpose of the grammar is to insure that the graphic is tied to data, and to separate graphics that make sense from graphics that are non-sense. To paraphrase the book, graphics that are grammatically correct may or may not be ugly, but can never be meaningless.
In a brilliant final chapter the author explains that the famous Minard's Napoleon's march chart (see Tufte) has some incorrect data, and that Minard took some liberties with the data. The conclusion: a beautifully designed and crafted graphic does not assure 100% accuracy. Whereas to quote the author, "a graphic without a concept of a variable is not a statistical graphic". So, if you make the variables available (in a data set) to your audience you make it all that much harder to mislead with graphics. Although Tufte's books have a VERY different style, avoiding lying with graphics is an important, recurring theme.
So if you are technically inclined, and especially if you are an SPSS user, seek out this book. It is a great companion to the literature on chart aesthetics. Before you dive in, note that this book is several hundred pages long. SPSS user's should look over the "GPL Reference" first to determine if this is a topic you are willing to dedicate time to.
covers a wide array of graphics June 1, 2001
7 out of 30 found this review helpful
A good book with lots of actual graphical examples to illustrate the different concepts. Coverage of many different kinds of graphs and how they are related and transformed into each other.
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