Slopegraphs and R – A pleasant diversion – May 26, 2018

Posted on May 24, 2018 by Chuck Powell in R bloggers | 0 Comments

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I try to at least scan the R-bloggers
feed everyday. Not every article is of interest to me, but I often have
one of two different reactions to at least one article. Sometimes it is
an “ah ha” moment because the article is right on point for a problem
I have now or have had in the past and the article provides a (better)
solution. Other times my reaction is more of an “oh yeah”, because it
is something I have been meaning to investigate, or something I once
knew, but the article brings a different perspective to it.

The second case happened to me this week. I’ve been aware of slopegraphs
and bumpcharts for quite some time, and I certainly am aware of Tufte’s
work. As an amateur military
historian I’ve always loved, for example, his
poster depicting Napoleon’s
Russian Campaign. So when I saw the article from Murtaza
Haider titled
“Edward Tufte’s Slopegraphs and political fortunes in Ontario” I
just had to take a peek and revisit the topic.

The article does a good job of looking at slopegraphs in both R (via
plotrix) and Stata, even providing the code to do the work. My
challenge was that even though I’m adequate at plotting in base R, I
much prefer using ggplot2 wherever and whenever possible. My memory
was that I had seen another article on the related topic of a
bumpchart on R-bloggers in the not too distant past. A little
sleuthing turned up this earlier
article from Dominik
Koch who wrote some code to
compare national performance at the Winter Olympics, “Bump Chart –
Track performance over time”.

Finally, I wound up at this Github
repository for a project called
“Edward Tufte-Inspired Slopegraphs” from Thomas J.
Leeper who has been building code to make
slopegraphs using both base plotting functions and ggplot2.

My post today will draw a little bit from all their work and hopefully
provide some useful samples for others to draw on if they share some of
my quirks about data layout and a preference for ggplot2 versus base
plot. I’m going to focus almost exclusively on slopegraphs, although
much of the work could be extended to bumpcharts as well.

Setup and library loading

We’re going to make occasional use of dplyr to manipulate the data,
extensive use of ggplot2 to do the plotting and ggrepel to solve one
specific labeling problem. We’ll load them and I am suppressing the
message from dplyr about namespace overrides.

<span class="n">require</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">dplyr</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w">
</span><span class="n">require</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">ggplot2</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w">
</span><span class="n">require</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">ggrepel</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w">
</span><span class="n">require</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">kableExtra</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w">
</span>

Politics in Ontario

The original
post
is about plotting the data from some polling results in Ontario. For the
reader’s convenience I’ve made the data available via a structure
command. We have data about two different polling dates, for 5 political
parties, and the measured variable is percent of people supporting
expressed as x.x (i.e. already multiplied by
100).

<span class="n">data</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o"><-</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">structure</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nf">list</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Date</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">structure</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nf">c</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="m">1L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">2L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">2L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">2L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">2L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">2L</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> 
                                        </span><span class="n">.Label</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nf">c</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"11-May-18"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"18-May-18"</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> 
                                        </span><span class="n">class</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"factor"</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> 
                        </span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">structure</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nf">c</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="m">5L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">3L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">2L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">4L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">5L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">3L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">2L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">4L</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> 
                                         </span><span class="n">.Label</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nf">c</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"Green"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"Liberal"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"NDP"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"Others"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"PC"</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> 
                                         </span><span class="n">class</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"factor"</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> 
                        </span><span class="n">Pct</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nf">c</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="m">42.3</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">28.4</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">22.1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">5.4</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1.8</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">41.9</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">29.3</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">22.3</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">5</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1.4</span><span class="p">)),</span><span class="w"> 
                  </span><span class="n">class</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"data.frame"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> 
                  </span><span class="n">row.names</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nf">c</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="kc">NA</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">-10L</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="w">

</span><span class="n">str</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w">
</span>
## 'data.frame':    10 obs. of  3 variables:
##  $ Date : Factor w/ 2 levels "11-May-18","18-May-18": 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2
##  $ Party: Factor w/ 5 levels "Green","Liberal",..: 5 3 2 1 4 5 3 2 1 4
##  $ Pct  : num  42.3 28.4 22.1 5.4 1.8 41.9 29.3 22.3 5 1.4
<span class="n">head</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w">
</span>
##        Date   Party  Pct
## 1 11-May-18      PC 42.3
## 2 11-May-18     NDP 28.4
## 3 11-May-18 Liberal 22.1
## 4 11-May-18   Green  5.4
## 5 11-May-18  Others  1.8
## 6 18-May-18      PC 41.9

Let’s just take the data as we have it and feed it to ggplot in a nice
simple fashion and see what we get with very little effort.

<span class="n">ggplot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">aes</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Date</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">y</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Pct</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">group</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">geom_line</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">aes</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">color</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">alpha</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">size</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">2</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">geom_point</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">aes</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">color</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">alpha</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">size</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">4</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1">#  Labelling as desired</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">labs</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="w">
    </span><span class="n">title</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"Voter's stated preferences for June 7 elections in Ontario"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w">
    </span><span class="n">subtitle</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"(Mainstreet Research)"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w">
    </span><span class="n">caption</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"https://www.mainstreetresearch.ca/gap-between-ndp-and-pcs-narrows-while-liberals-hold-steady/"</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w">
</span>

The nice thing about ggplot is once you get used to the syntax it
becomes very “readable”. We’ve identified our dataset, the x & y
variables and our grouping variable. Lines too big? An adjustment to
size = 2 does it. Don’t like colors? Pull the color = Party clause.

So we’re already pretty close to what we need. Things are scaled
properly and the basic labeling of titles etc. is accomplished. Our
biggest “problem” is that ggplot has been a little too helpful and
adding some things we’d like to remove to give it a more “Tuftesque”
look. So what we’ll do in the next few steps is add lines of code – but
they are mainly designed to remove unwanted elements. This is in
contrast to a base plot where we have to write the code to add elements.

So lets:

  • Move the x axis labels to the top with scale_x_discrete(position =
    "top")
  • Change to a nice clean black and white theme theme_bw()
  • Not display any legend(s) theme(legend.position = "none")
  • Remove the default border from our plot theme(panel.border =
    element_blank())

<span class="n">ggplot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">aes</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Date</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">y</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Pct</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">group</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">geom_line</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">aes</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">color</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">alpha</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">size</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">2</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">geom_point</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">aes</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">color</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">alpha</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">size</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">4</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># move the x axis labels up top</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">scale_x_discrete</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">position</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"top"</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme_bw</span><span class="p">()</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Format tweaks</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Remove the legend</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">legend.position</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"none"</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Remove the panel border</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">panel.border</span><span class="w">     </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1">#  Labelling as desired</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">labs</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="w">
    </span><span class="n">title</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"Voter's stated preferences for June 7 elections in Ontario"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w">
    </span><span class="n">subtitle</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"(Mainstreet Research)"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w">
    </span><span class="n">caption</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"https://www.mainstreetresearch.ca/gap-between-ndp-and-pcs-narrows-while-liberals-hold-steady/"</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w">
</span>

Nice progress! Continuing to remove things that can be considered
“clutter” we add some additional lines that all end in
element_blank() and are invoked to remove default plot items such as
the plot grid, the y axcis text, etc..

<span class="n">ggplot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">aes</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Date</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">y</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Pct</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">group</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">geom_line</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">aes</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">color</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">alpha</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">size</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">2</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">geom_point</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">aes</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">color</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">alpha</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">size</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">4</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># move the x axis labels up top</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">scale_x_discrete</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">position</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"top"</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme_bw</span><span class="p">()</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Format tweaks</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Remove the legend</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">legend.position</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"none"</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Remove the panel border</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">panel.border</span><span class="w">     </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Remove just about everything from the y axis</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">axis.title.y</span><span class="w">     </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">axis.text.y</span><span class="w">      </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">panel.grid.major.y</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">panel.grid.minor.y</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Remove a few things from the x axis and increase font size</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">axis.title.x</span><span class="w">     </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">panel.grid.major.x</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">axis.text.x.top</span><span class="w">      </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_text</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">size</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="m">12</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Remove x & y tick marks</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">axis.ticks</span><span class="w">       </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1">#  Labelling as desired</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">labs</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="w">
    </span><span class="n">title</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"Voter's stated preferences for June 7 elections in Ontario"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w">
    </span><span class="n">subtitle</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"(Mainstreet Research)"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w">
    </span><span class="n">caption</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"https://www.mainstreetresearch.ca/gap-between-ndp-and-pcs-narrows-while-liberals-hold-steady/"</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w">
</span>

Very nice! We’re almost there! The “almost” is because now that we
have removed both the legend and all scales and tick marks we no longer
know who is who, and what the numbers are! Plus, I’m a little unhappy
with the way the titles are formatted, so we’ll play with that. Later,
I’ll get fancy but for now let’s just add some simple text labels on
the left and right to show the party name and their percentage. The code
geom_text(aes(label = Party)) will place the party name right on top
of the points that anchor either end of the line. If we make that
geom_text(aes(label = paste0(Party, " - ", Pct, "%"))) then we’ll get
labels that have both the party and the percent all neatly formatted,
but still right on top of the points that anchor the ends of the line.
hjust controls horizontal justification so if we change it to
geom_text(aes(label = paste0(Party, " - ", Pct, "%")), hjust = 1.35)
both sets of labels will slide to the left which is exactly what we want
for the May 11 labels but not the May 18 labels. If we feed hjust a
negative number they’ll go the other way. So what we’ll do is filter the
data using the filter function from dplyr and place the left hand
labels differently than the right hand labels. While we’re at it we’ll
make it bold face font and a little larger…

<span class="n">ggplot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">aes</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Date</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">y</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Pct</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">group</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">geom_line</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">aes</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">color</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">alpha</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">size</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">2</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">geom_point</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">aes</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">color</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">alpha</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">size</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">4</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">geom_text</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">data</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">%>%</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">filter</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">Date</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">==</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"11-May-18"</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> 
            </span><span class="n">aes</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">paste0</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">" - "</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Pct</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"%"</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> 
            </span><span class="n">hjust</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1.35</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> 
            </span><span class="n">fontface</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"bold"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> 
            </span><span class="n">size</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">4</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">geom_text</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">data</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">%>%</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">filter</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">Date</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">==</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"18-May-18"</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> 
            </span><span class="n">aes</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">paste0</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">" - "</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Pct</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"%"</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> 
            </span><span class="n">hjust</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">-.35</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> 
            </span><span class="n">fontface</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"bold"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> 
            </span><span class="n">size</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">4</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># move the x axis labels up top</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">scale_x_discrete</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">position</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"top"</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme_bw</span><span class="p">()</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Format tweaks</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Remove the legend</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">legend.position</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"none"</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Remove the panel border</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">panel.border</span><span class="w">     </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Remove just about everything from the y axis</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">axis.title.y</span><span class="w">     </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">axis.text.y</span><span class="w">      </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">panel.grid.major.y</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">panel.grid.minor.y</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Remove a few things from the x axis and increase font size</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">axis.title.x</span><span class="w">     </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">panel.grid.major.x</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">axis.text.x.top</span><span class="w">      </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_text</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">size</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="m">12</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Remove x & y tick marks</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">axis.ticks</span><span class="w">       </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Format title & subtitle</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">plot.title</span><span class="w">       </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_text</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">size</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="m">14</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">face</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"bold"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">hjust</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">0.5</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">plot.subtitle</span><span class="w">    </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_text</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">hjust</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">0.5</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1">#  Labelling as desired</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">labs</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="w">
    </span><span class="n">title</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"Voter's stated preferences for June 7 elections in Ontario"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w">
    </span><span class="n">subtitle</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"(Mainstreet Research)"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w">
    </span><span class="n">caption</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"https://www.mainstreetresearch.ca/gap-between-ndp-and-pcs-narrows-while-liberals-hold-steady/"</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w">
</span>

Eureka! Not perfect yet but definitely looking good.

Adding complexity

I’m feeling pretty good about the solution so far but there are three
things I’d like to make better.

  1. How well will this solution work when we have more than two time
    periods? Need to make sure it generalizes to a more complex case.
  2. As Murtaza
    Haider     notes in
    his post we’ll have issues if the data points are identical or very
    close together. Our very neat little labels will overlap each other.
    In his post I believe he mentions that he manually moved them in
    some cases. Let’s try and fix that.
  3. Oh my, that’s a lot of code to keep cutting and pasting, can we
    simplify?

To test #1 and #2 I have “invented”” a new dataset called moredata.
It is fictional it’s labelled May 25th but today is actually May
24th. But I created it to add a third polling date and to make sure that
we had a chance to test what happens when we have two identical
datapoints on the same day. Notice that on May 25th the polling numbers
for the Liberals and the NDP are identical at
26.8%.

<span class="n">moredata</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o"><-</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">structure</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nf">list</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">Date</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">structure</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nf">c</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="m">1L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">2L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">2L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">2L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">2L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">2L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">3L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">3L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">3L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">3L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">3L</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> 
                                            </span><span class="n">.Label</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nf">c</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"11-May-18"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"18-May-18"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"25-May-18"</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> 
                                            </span><span class="n">class</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"factor"</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> 
                           </span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">structure</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nf">c</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="m">5L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">3L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">2L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">4L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">5L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">3L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">2L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">4L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">5L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">3L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">2L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1L</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">4L</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> 
                                             </span><span class="n">.Label</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nf">c</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"Green"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"Liberal"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"NDP"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"Others"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"PC"</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> 
                                             </span><span class="n">class</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"factor"</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> 
                           </span><span class="n">Pct</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nf">c</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="m">42.3</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">28.4</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">22.1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">5.4</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1.8</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">41.9</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">29.3</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">22.3</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">5</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1.4</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">41.9</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">26.8</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">26.8</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">5</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1.4</span><span class="p">)),</span><span class="w"> 
                      </span><span class="n">class</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"data.frame"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> 
                      </span><span class="n">row.names</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nf">c</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="kc">NA</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">-15L</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="w">
</span><span class="n">tail</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">moredata</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w">
</span>
##         Date   Party  Pct
## 10 18-May-18  Others  1.4
## 11 25-May-18      PC 41.9
## 12 25-May-18     NDP 26.8
## 13 25-May-18 Liberal 26.8
## 14 25-May-18   Green  5.0
## 15 25-May-18  Others  1.4

You’ll notice at the beginning of this post I loaded the ggrepel
library. ggrepel works with ggplot2 to repel things that overlap,
in this case our geom_text labels. The invocation is geom_text_repel
and it is very similar to geom_text but allows us to deconflict the
overlaps. We’ll use hjust = "left" and hjust = "right" to control
justifying the labels. We’ll use a fixed nudge left and right nudge_x =
-.45 and nudge_x = .5 to move the labels left and right off the
plotted data points and we will explicitly tell geom_text_repel to
only move the labels vertically to avoid overlap with direction = "y".
Everything else remains the same.

<span class="n">ggplot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">moredata</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">aes</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Date</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">y</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Pct</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">group</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">geom_line</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">aes</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">color</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">alpha</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">size</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">2</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">geom_point</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">aes</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">color</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">alpha</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">1</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">size</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">4</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">geom_text_repel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">moredata</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">%>%</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">filter</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">Date</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">==</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"11-May-18"</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> 
                  </span><span class="n">aes</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">paste0</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">" - "</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Pct</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"%"</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> 
                  </span><span class="n">hjust</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"left"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> 
                  </span><span class="n">fontface</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"bold"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> 
                  </span><span class="n">size</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">4</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> 
                  </span><span class="n">nudge_x</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">-.45</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> 
                  </span><span class="n">direction</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"y"</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">geom_text_repel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">moredata</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">%>%</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">filter</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">Date</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">==</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"25-May-18"</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> 
                  </span><span class="n">aes</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">paste0</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">Party</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">" - "</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Pct</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"%"</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> 
                  </span><span class="n">hjust</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"right"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> 
                  </span><span class="n">fontface</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"bold"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> 
                  </span><span class="n">size</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">4</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> 
                  </span><span class="n">nudge_x</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">.5</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> 
                  </span><span class="n">direction</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"y"</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># move the x axis labels up top</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">scale_x_discrete</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">position</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"top"</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme_bw</span><span class="p">()</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Format tweaks</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Remove the legend</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">legend.position</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"none"</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Remove the panel border</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">panel.border</span><span class="w">     </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Remove just about everything from the y axis</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">axis.title.y</span><span class="w">     </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">axis.text.y</span><span class="w">      </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">panel.grid.major.y</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">panel.grid.minor.y</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Remove a few things from the x axis and increase font size</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">axis.title.x</span><span class="w">     </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">panel.grid.major.x</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">axis.text.x.top</span><span class="w">      </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_text</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">size</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="m">12</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Remove x & y tick marks</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">axis.ticks</span><span class="w">       </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_blank</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1"># Format title & subtitle</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">plot.title</span><span class="w">       </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_text</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">size</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="m">14</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">face</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">"bold"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">hjust</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">0.5</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">theme</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">plot.subtitle</span><span class="w">    </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">element_text</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">hjust</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="m">0.5</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">+</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="c1">#  Labelling as desired</span><span class="w">
  </span><span class="n">labs</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="w&qu...

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