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Sujit Mali
Sujit Mali

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How to read a histogram?

A histogram is a graphical representation of the distribution of a dataset. It is an estimate of the probability distribution of a continuous variable. To read a histogram in detail, you should pay attention to the following elements:

  1. The x-axis represents the variable of interest, while the y-axis represents the frequency of that variable.
  2. The bars of the histogram show the frequency of observations within each class or bin. The height of each bar corresponds to the number of observations that fall within the corresponding class.
  3. The shape of the histogram can reveal information about the distribution of the data. For example, a symmetric histogram with a bell-shaped curve indicates a normal distribution, while a histogram with a long tail to the right or left indicates a skewed distribution.
  4. The number of classes or bins can also be important. A histogram with too few classes can make the data appear more variable than it really is, while a histogram with too many classes can make the data appear less variable than it really is.
  5. The histogram can also be used to identify patterns or outliers in the data by looking for gaps or clusters in the distribution.

Finally, it is important to keep in mind that histograms are just one way of visualizing data, and other types of plots such as box plots, scatter plots, etc might be better suited depending on the context and the question you want to answer.
You can create histogram easily using histogram maker.

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