Box Plot

One of the more effective graphical summaries of a data set, the box plot generally shows mean, median, 25th and 75th percentiles, and outliers. A standard box plot is composed of the median, upper hinge, lower hinge, upper adjacent value, lower adjacent value, outside values, and far out values. An example is shown below. Parallel box plots are very useful for comparing distributions. See also: step, H-spread.