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how do you tell if there is an outlier in a box plot

by Eula Glover MD Published 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago

Boxplots, histograms, and scatterplots can highlight outliers. Boxplots display asterisks or other symbols on the graph to indicate explicitly when datasets contain outliers. These graphs use the interquartile method with fences to find outliers, which I explain later.

When reviewing a box plot, an outlier is defined as a data point that is located outside the whiskers of the box plot. For example, outside 1.5 times the interquartile range above the upper quartile and below the lower quartile (Q1 - 1.5 * IQR or Q3 + 1.5 * IQR).

Full Answer

How do outliers affect a box and whisker plot?

ax.set_title ('Box and Whisker Diagram') Outliers are data points that abnormal and does not follow the general trend of the entire dataset. They could be due to human error during data collection...

What is a box plot and when to use it?

What is a Box Plot?

  • Introduction to box plots. A Box and Whisker Plot (or Box Plot) is a convenient way of visually displaying the data distribution through their quartiles.
  • Types of box plots. Box plot represents a numeric vector of data that is split in several groups. ...
  • Notched box plots. ...
  • Complications in box plots. ...

What is box plot and why to use box plots?

In descriptive statistics, a box plot or boxplot (also known as box and whisker plot) is a type of chart often used in explanatory data analysis. Box plots visually show the distribution of numerical data and skewness through displaying the data quartiles (or percentiles) and averages.

How are outliers determined boxplot?

  • median (Q2/50th Percentile): the middle value of the dataset.
  • first quartile (Q1/25th Percentile): the middle number between the smallest number (not the “minimum”) and the median of the dataset.
  • third quartile (Q3/75th Percentile): the middle value between the median and the highest value (not the “maximum”) of the dataset.

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What are outliers?

Outliers are extreme values that differ from most values in the dataset. You find outliers at the extreme ends of your dataset.

Why do outliers matter?

Outliers can have a big impact on your statistical analyses and skew the results of any hypothesis test if they are inaccurate. These extreme...

How do I find outliers in my data?

You can choose from four main ways to detect outliers : Sorting your values from low to high and checking minimum and maximum values Visualizing y...

When should I remove an outlier from my dataset?

It’s best to remove outliers only when you have a sound reason for doing so. Some outliers represent natural variations in the population , and...

What is considered an outlier?

An extreme value is considered to be an outlier if it is at least 1.5 interquartile ranges below the first quartile, or at least 1.5 interquartile ranges above the third quartile.

What is box plot?

Box plot is a data visualization plotting function. It shows the min, max, median, first quartile, and third quartile. All of the things will be explained briefly. All of the property of box plot can be accessed by dataframe.column_name.describe () function.

What is the difference between the lower and upper quartiles?

The lower quartile value is the median of the lower half of the data. The upper quartile value is the median of the upper half of the data. An extreme value is considered to be an outlier if it is at least 1.5 interquartile ranges below the first quartile, or at least 1.5 interquartile ranges above the third quartile.

How to divide data into two halves?

Use the median to divide the ordered data set into two halves. 1) If there is an odd number of data points in the original ordered data set, do not include the median (the central value in the ordered list) in either half. 2) If there is an even number of data points in the original ordered data set, split this data set exactly in half.

Why is Boxplot useful?

This plot is very helpful in comparing spread and shape across different categories. And, it shows key statistical measure in single visualization. You can read more about Boxplot-wiki.

What is boxplot in math?

Boxplot helps to visualize numeric data using quartiles. Once we depict boxplot for the numeric field, we will see the output which has following important things to notice. So, boxplot displays data with a box in middle and set of whiskers.

What is a B ox plot?

B ox plot is the graphical presentation of data commonly used for finding the outliers in the data. As we know, data plays very important role in machine learning end to end processing. Better the data is given to train the model, you will notice model generalizing better to unseen data. So, data is the heart to solve any problem statement. Defining a problem and collecting the data is the root to start solving the problem.

What is the first quartile?

Quartile (first/third): First quartile is Q1 or 25th percentile. And, third quartile is Q3 or 75th percentile.

What is the median in statistics?

Median: Median helps you to know how the data is spread in the both side of this mark. Median is nothing but Q2 or 50th quartile [Here Q is quartile]. In simple, it is the middle value of the dataset.

Four ways of calculating outliers

You can choose from several methods to detect outliers depending on your time and resources.

Example: Using the interquartile range to find outliers

We’ll walk you through the popular IQR method for identifying outliers using a step-by-step example.

Dealing with outliers

Once you’ve identified outliers, you’ll decide what to do with them. Your main options are retaining or removing them from your dataset. This is similar to the choice you’re faced with when dealing with missing data.

Frequently asked questions about outliers

Outliers are extreme values that differ from most values in the dataset. You find outliers at the extreme ends of your dataset.

Pritha Bhandari

Pritha has an academic background in English, psychology and cognitive neuroscience. As an interdisciplinary researcher, she enjoys writing articles explaining tricky research concepts for students and academics.

What is an outlier in machine learning?

Outliers are data points that abnormal and does not follow the general trend of the entire dataset. They could be due to human error during data collection and recording or experimental errors. They can cause serious errors in statistical analysis and reduce the performance of your Machine Learning Model.

How do we detect outliers using IQR, Q1, Q3, Minimum and Maximum Value?

Calculate the Q1, Q3 and IQR using pandas .quantile () method. The method takes in a few arguments but the most important one you should know is ‘q’ which represents the percentile you want to return. For example, q=0.25 will return the 25th percentile.

What is exploratory data analysis?

Exploratory Data Analysis refers to the critical process of performing initial investigations on data so as to discover patterns,to spot anomalies,to test hypothesis and to check assumptions with the help of summary statistics and graphical representations

Can we filter outliers using Boolean logic?

Outliers lie outside the boundaries defines by the Minimum and Maximum Values. Therefore, we can filter them using Boolean Logic.

How to interpret a box plot?

If the box plot is relatively tall, then the data is spread out. The interpretation of the compactness or spread of the data also applies to each of the 4 sections of the box plot.

Why is a box plot useful?

The box plot is also useful for evaluating the relationship between numeric data (continuous data) and categorical data (finite data). The following plot shows two box plots. The plot shows two box plots, one for category 1 and the other for category 2. Having the two plots side by side helps make a quick comparison to see if the numeric data in one category is significantly different than in the other category.

What are box plot whiskers?

In the default R package, the top whisker shows the smaller of two values, one possible value is the maximum value, and the other possible value is the third quantile + 1.5 times IRQ. The bottom whisker shows the larger of two values, one possible value is the minimum value, and the other possible value is the first quantile minus 1.5 times the inter-quantile range.

What is the IRQ of a box plot?

The interquartile range IRQ of a box plot is a visualization of the range from the first quantile to the third quantile. The outer lines of the IRQ show the first and third quartiles, so if you are looking at the lower half of the data, then the edge of the IRQ, where the IRQ and whisker meet, is approximately one half of the lower half of the data. In other words, the first quartile is the median of the lower half of the data.

What are the components of a box plot?

The box plot shows the median (second quartile), first and third quartile, minimum, and maximum. The main components of the box plot are the interquartile range (IRQ) and whiskers.

Do box plots show statistics?

Box plots do not display all statistics needed to determine the distribution. For example, if we were looking at just the box plot of the following data set, we wouldn’t be able to tell if the distribution of the data is centered about two points or pretty much spread even across the data range.

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Introduction to Outliers

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Outlier is a value that lies in a data series on its extremes, which is either very small or large and thus can affect the overall observation made from the data series. Outliers are also termed as extremes because they lie on the either end of a data series. Outliers are usually treated as abnormal valuesthat can affect the overall o…
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Box Plot Diagram

  • Box plot diagram also termed as Whisker’s plot is a graphical method typically depicted by quartiles and inter quartiles that helps in defining the upper limit and lower limit beyond which any data lying will be considered as outliers. The very purpose of this diagram is to identify outliers and discard it from the data seriesbefore making any further observation so that the conclusion …
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Identifying Outliers

  • Let nbe the number of data values in the data set. The Median (Q2) is the middle value of the data set. The Lower quartile(Q1)is the median of the lower half of the data set The Upper quartile(Q3)is the median of the upper half of the data set. The Interquartile range(IQR)is the spread of the middle 50% of the data values. Interquartile Range (IQR)...
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Conclusion

  • Hence it is clear that any range above 333.5 or below 201.5 are outliers. Hence in the data series 199, 201, 236, 269,271,278,283,291, 301, 303, 341, outliers are 199, 201 and 341. These 3 values which lies on either of the extremes can be considered abnormaland should be discarded from the entire series so that any analysis made on this series is not influenced by these extreme valu…
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