Visualizing Categorical Data: Data, Stories, and Pictures

Categorical data—frequency data, and discrete data—are most often presented in tables, and analyses using loglinear models and logistic regression are most often presented in terms of parameter estimates. Over the past decade, I and others have developed novel visualization methods for categorical data, designed to provide exploratory and confirmatory graphic displays analogous to those used readily and easily for quantitative data. These graphical methods are described in Visualizing Categorical Data. The book also provides a large collection of macros designed to make these methods readily and easily used. This paper provides an overview of these graphical methods and macros, as told through data, their stories, and associated graphical displays.