In a stem and leaf plot whats the difference between a stem and leaf?

Question

This is a question on my homework due tomorrow this question is important and I'm really confused. Please help soon.

Answer 1

Khloe,

 

A stem and leaf plot is one way to write down statistical data that is easy to view, instead of merely writing down the numbers.  Here is an example of what I'm talking about:

 

Data points:

12,15,12,17,11,19,22,24,28,27,26,25,24,19,16,12,29,25,30,31,5,9,9

 

If I want to put these in a stem and leaf plot, I will write these numbers like this:

 

Stem    Leaf

0          5 9 9

1          2 5 2 7 1 9 9 6 2

2          2 4 8 7 6 5 2 9 5

3          0 1

 

If you notice the example I have above the "stem" represents the tens column, and the "leaf" represents the ones column. 

You can make the stem and leaf out of any data you have collected to make it easier to see and manipulate.

 

I hope this helps!

Answer 2

I'll give you an example of a stem and leaf plot that will hopefully illustrate the difference.

 

Given data that looks like this (sorted for convenience):

 

5, 13, 13, 14, 17, 20, 25, 41

 

The resulting stem and leaf plot would look like this

 

0 | 5

1 | 3, 3, 4, 7

2 | 0, 5

3 | 

4 | 1

 

The stems are represented by the numbers on the left side of the bar and the leaves are represented on the right side of the bar. In a way similar to that of the histogram, the stems serve as ranges for the data while the leaves represent the data itself.

 

Good luck!