The Integrated Violin-Box-Scatter (VBS) Plot to Visualize the Distribution of a Continuous Variable
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsIn this paper, a review is made to improve the graphs of distribution of a continuous variable with a focus on violin plots, box plots and scatter plots. It proposes the integration of them in a chart called VBS plot that can be used through the Plot(x) function of the lessR library.
First of all, I would like to congratulate you on the work presented, as it is an interesting and useful topic, both for research and for teaching.
A small recommendation that would enrich the work presented. It would be ideal to show the code in an appendix, or to show how to make the various changes discussed, such as the changes that lead to figure 5. How are lines 215-216 implemented in the code?
Author Response
Reviewer #1 Comment
A small recommendation that would enrich the work presented. It would be ideal to show the code in an appendix, or to show how to make the various changes discussed, such as the changes that lead to figure 5. How are lines 215-216 implemented in the code?
Response:
Although I am open to providing the codes in an appendix, I believe the reviewer's comment is best addressed through a clarification of the existing material. In addition to now providing the code for each figure instead of most figures, I propose the following enhancement regarding lines 215-216 to address the reviewer's concern.
#217:
Both of these equations apply to the plot of a single variable, with at least mostly unique data values. These equations were then embedded in the code for \y{Plot()} so that they are implicitly applied to compute point size whenever relevant. Although these equations are not directly manipulable by the user, the resultant point size is directly accessible to the user as the parameter \y{size} as illustrated above. Presumably, if a change in point size is desired different from the default, the initial point size implicitly provided by these equations would be closer to what the user desires than would be an arbitrary point size the same for all analysis.
To further address the reviewer's concern, a similar clarification was also added at a subsequent equation.
#290:
As with similar equations, once developed through empirical observation, this equation for horizontal jitter was added to the internals of \y{Plot()} to provide a reasonable default value.
Reviewer #2 Comments
The manuscript meets editorial requirements. The writing is excellent but aimed at experienced statisticians. The violin plot and the one-dimensional scatterplot should therefore be inserted in the introductory section for less-experienced readers, since they are described there in detail and a histogram is already included.
I suggest acceptation with only two minor correction:
3. Provide more lists of your minor for the improvement of the manuscript.
Page 3, line 95: replace “date frame” with “data frame”.
Page 3, line 96: rewrite the sentence “To read the data, available online, here use the lessR function Read() that applies the identical syntax to read into a standard R data frame a any one of a dozen of file formats”
Responses:
Per the reviewer's request, I have provided examples of the violin plot and the 1-D scatterplot toward the beginning of the paper.
I made the correction on Line #95.
I rewrote the sentence on Line #96.
Other Changes
-------------
#102: Added a sentence to indicate that the data table is also available locally as part of the lessR download.
#269: Changed 'categories' to 'categorize' to make the sentence grammatical.
#271: Changed 'maybe' to 'is'.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsReport on stats-3176290
Title:
The Integrated Violin-Box-Scatter (VBS) Plot to Visualize the Distribution of a Continuous Variable
1. Brief summary and comments of the content of the manuscript
The article focuses on a plotting function that automatically integrates three visualizations of any continuous statistical variable into a so-called VBS plot (Violin/Box/Scatterplot), adapting the resulting plot to the sample size and discrete nature of the data. This integration is easily generalized to a multi-panel presentation at each level of a second categorical variable. Text outputs at the R consol and figures obtained from the package lessR (developed by the author) are presented. Instead of accessing from several function calls to create a visualization, only the Plot() function needs to be called. This function provides the automatic integration of the three visualizations, tuning of the underlying parameters, and accompanying statistical output.
2. Reasoning behind my recommendation
The manuscript meets editorial requirements. The writing is excellent but aimed at experienced statisticians. The violin plot and the one-dimensional scatterplot should therefore be inserted in the introductory section for less-experienced readers, since they are described there in detail and a histogram is already included.
I suggest acceptation with only two minor correction:
3. Provide more lists of your minor for the improvement of the manuscript.
Page 3, line 95: replace “date frame” with “data frame”.
Page 3, line 96: rewrite the sentence “To read the data, available online, here use the lessR function Read() that applies the identical syntax to read into a standard R data frame a any one of a dozen of file formats”
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Reviewer #2 Comments
The manuscript meets editorial requirements. The writing is excellent but aimed at experienced statisticians. The violin plot and the one-dimensional scatterplot should therefore be inserted in the introductory section for less-experienced readers, since they are described there in detail and a histogram is already included.
I suggest acceptation with only two minor correction:
3. Provide more lists of your minor for the improvement of the manuscript.
Page 3, line 95: replace “date frame” with “data frame”.
Page 3, line 96: rewrite the sentence “To read the data, available online, here use the lessR function Read() that applies the identical syntax to read into a standard R data frame a any one of a dozen of file formats”
Responses:
Per the reviewer's request, I have provided examples of the violin plot and the 1-D scatterplot toward the beginning of the paper.
I made the correction on Line #95.
I rewrote the sentence on Line #96.
Other Changes
-------------
#102: Added a sentence to indicate that the data table is also available locally as part of the lessR download.
#269: Changed 'categories' to 'categorize' to make the sentence grammatical.
#271: Changed 'maybe' to 'is'.
