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Is it possible to use the mean in a ggplot boxplot instead of the median? Reason I ask is that in my data the median = 0.0 and mean = 0.40 and I am interested in the mean.

Shark167
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    already answered see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19876505/boxplot-show-the-value-of-mean – MLavoie Dec 30 '15 at 12:27
  • [Related question/answer](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25999677/how-to-plot-mean-and-standard-error-in-boxplot-in-r) for how to use your own statistics in the place of standard boxplot statistics in ggplot2. – aosmith Dec 30 '15 at 16:04

1 Answers1

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From the help ?geom_boxplot: 

library(ggplot2)
# It's possible to draw a boxplot with your own computations if you
# use stat = "identity":
y <- rnorm(100)
df <- data.frame(
  x = 1,
  y0 = min(y),
  y25 = quantile(y, 0.25),
  y50 = median(y),   # <=== replace by mean
  y75 = quantile(y, 0.75),
  y100 = max(y)
)
ggplot(df, aes(x)) +
  geom_boxplot(
    aes(ymin = y0, lower = y25, middle = y50, upper = y75, ymax = y100),
    stat = "identity"
  )

So you could pre-compute the box values, use stat="identity" and replace median by mean.

lukeA
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