“The Power of Box Plots: A Simple Tool for Complex Data”

Unlocking the Secrets of Data Spread and Outliers

A box and whisker plot, also known simply as a box plot, is a graphical representation used to display the distribution of a dataset.

It provides a summary of the data based on five key summary statistics: the minimum, first quartile (Q1), median (Q2), third quartile (Q3), and maximum.

Here’s a breakdown of the components of a box plot:

What is Box:

• The box represents the interquartile range (IQR), which is the range between the first quartile (Q1) and the third quartile (Q3). This middle 50% of the data is where the bulk of the values lie.
• The bottom line of the box corresponds to the first quartile (Q1), and the top line of the box corresponds to the third quartile (Q3).
• The line inside the box marks the median (Q2), which is the midpoint of the data.

What is Whiskers:

• The whiskers extend from the edges of the box to the smallest and largest values within 1.5 times the IQR from Q1 and Q3, respectively.