Data Analysis with Microsoft Excel: Updated for Office 2007

150 Fundamentals of Statistics

8 Click the OK button. Excel generates the stem and leaf plot shown

in Figure 4-14.

Figure 4-14
Stem and leaf
plot of the
housing data

stem values leaf values

stem multiplier

In this plot, the stem values occupy the fi rst column and the leaf values

are placed in the following three columns for homes outside the northeast

sector, in the northeast sector, and over all sectors. Note that cell A1 identi-

fi es the stem multiplier, indicating that each stem value must be multiplied

by 10,000 in order to calculate the underlying data values.

Let’s see how this works. The fi rst stem value is 5; this represents 50,000.

The fi rst leaf value is 4 (where the NE_Sector variable equals No), which

would represent a value one decimal place lower, or 4,000. Thus the fi rst

data value in this plot equals the stem value plus the leaf value, or 54,000,

which is equal to the value of the lowest-priced home in the sample. Using

the same method, you can calculate the value of the highest-priced home

to be $215,000. You can also see at a glance that there are no homes in the

$170,000–$179,000 price range, though there is one home priced at about

$169,000 (actually $169,500). In addition to this information, you can also

use the stem and leaf plot to make the same observations about the shape of

the distribution that you did earlier with the histogram.