Displaying moderate or large counts
Some discrete data sets contain large values. Counts of red blood cells (per ml of blood) provide an example — all counts would be greater than 1,000. A histogram can be used for a 'smooth' summary of the shape of the distribution of values.
If the counts are a bit smaller, the exact definition of the histogram classes becomes important. The class boundaries should end in '.5' to ensure that data values do not occur on the boundary of two classes.
Morally 'right' actions
The diagram below shows a histogram of the data on the previous page.
Use the Narrower and Wider buttons to adjust class width. As with previous examples of histograms, class width should be chosen to give a fairly smooth picture of the shape of the distribution.
Note that: