Plot using mean and standard error values using ggplot2

Question

Here's my data:

   year   means   stder
1 A_1996 4.1291 0.19625
2 B_1997 3.4490 0.18598
3 C_1998 4.1166 0.15977
4 D_1999 3.6500 0.15093
5 E_2000 3.9528 0.14950
6 F_2001 2.7318 0.13212

This is all the data I have. I'd like to plot these using the ggplot2 package, if possible. X axis will be year, and Y axis will be means. Each year will have one point -its corresponding mean value, with the respective standard error values as the "whiskers" around that point. How would I do this using the ggplot() function?

I think I'm mainly confused on how to put the standard error data into the ymin and ymax inputs.

I started looking here, but the beginning data is different, so I'm a little confused.

Plotting means and error bars (ggplot2)

pogibas pogibas · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-15T22:45:13

Simple plot using general ggplot2 commands:

library(ggplot2)
df$year <- as.numeric(gsub(".*_", "", df$year))
ggplot(df, aes(year, mean)) +
    geom_point() +
    geom_errorbar(aes(ymin = mean - stder, 
                      ymax = mean + stder))

Same plot with fancier visuals:

ggplot(df, aes(year, mean)) +
    geom_point(size = 3) +
    geom_errorbar(aes(ymin = mean - stder, 
                      ymax = mean + stder),
                  width = 0.5, size = 0.5) +
    theme_bw() +
    labs(x = "Year",
         y = "Mean",
         title = "Change in mean over the period")

Plot using mean and standard error values using ggplot2

1 Answers