Stem-and-leaf plot

In statistics, a stemplot (or stem-and-leaf plot) is a graphical display of quantitative data that is similar to a histogram and is useful in visualizing the shape of a distribution. Stemplots contain more information than do histograms because, unlike in a histogram where bars are used, the individual data values are displayed in a table-like format, in order of increasing magnitude. A basic stemplot contains two columns separated by a vertical line. The left column contains the stems and the right column contains the leaves.

Constructing a stemplot

To construct a stemplot, the observations must first be sorted in ascending order. Here is the sorted set of data values that will be used in the example:

Next, it must be determined what the stems will represent and what the leaves will represent. Typically, the leaf contains the last digit of the number and the stem contains all of the other digits. In the case of very large or very small numbers, the data values may be rounded to a particular