[R] Plot means with error bars - A novice needs help

[hadley wickham]

On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 11:31 PM, Michael Just <mgjust at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
> I'd appreciate a suggestion on how to construct plots (barplots?) that use
> means on the Y axis instead of density/count. I'd also like to use groups
> and plot error or confidence interval bars on these graphs. I know this is a
> read the manual situation. I'd appreciate help with what to read, or your
> benevolence with some sample code.

Here's an alternative suggestion - don't use bars, use dots.  Bar
plots with standard errors are sometime called dynamite plots
(probably because they should be blown up).  See
http://biostat.mc.vanderbilt.edu/twiki/bin/view/Main/DynamitePlots and
http://emdbolker.wikidot.com/blog:dynamite for some reasons not to use
them and possible alternatives.

I hope that package authors who provide methods to make these plots
easy will reconsider.

Hadley

-- 
http://had.co.nz/