Speaking Stata: Front-and-back plots to ease spaghetti and paella problems

Cox, Nicholas J.

Abstract

The spaghetti problem arises in graphics when multiple time series or other functional traces show mostly a tangled mess. The related paella problem (often experienced but not usually named as such) arises for multiple patterns combined in scatterplots. This column is a sequel to those in Stata Journal 10: 670–681 (2010) and 19: 989–1008 (2019). The focus is on what are here called front-and-back plots, in which each subset of data is shown separately with the other subsets as backdrop. The strategy is thus a hybrid of two more common strategies, showing each subset separately (juxtaposing) and showing subsets together (superimposing). A new command, fabplot, is introduced and used in examples.

Citation

Cox, N. J. (2021). Speaking Stata: Front-and-back plots to ease spaghetti and paella problems. The Stata Journal, 21(2), 539-554. https://doi.org/10.1177/1536867x211025838

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 31, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Jun 29, 2021
• Publication Date: Jun 1, 2021
• Deposit Date: Aug 27, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 27, 2021
• Journal: The Stata Journal: Promoting communications on statistics and Stata
• Print ISSN: 1536-867X
• Electronic ISSN: 1536-8734
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 21
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 539-554
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1536867x211025838
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1242092