Average and median intend to characterize distributions with a single value. Often, this is not enough. If you want to understand data you have to look at it. Rafe has a nice idea how to do this in an information-dense way.
Mrs. Johnson’s piano class last year had eight students of varying ages
, seven of them children and one older gentleman, Mr. Onaip, who provided the other students with an interesting perspective on music and life in general. This year, the age distribution is noticeably different
, since Mr. Onaip has brought along two of his like-aged friends and his daughter, Allegro, who has just graduated from medical school.
It works in Excel, too.
How important it is to look at data in detail is demonstrated in the story of Stephen Jay Gould [in German].
