Label bar plot with geom_text in ggplot

Question

I've created this plot with following code:

library(ggplot2); library(reshape2); library(plyr)

likert <- data.frame(age = c(rep("young", 5), rep("middle", 5), rep("old", 5)),
                     score1 = c(rep("unlikely", 1), rep("likely", 1), rep("very likely", 13)),
                     score2  = c(rep("disagree", 6), rep("neutral", 4), rep("agree", 5)),
                     score3 = c(rep("no", 5), rep("maybe", 7), rep("yes", 3)))

meltedLikert <- melt(dlply(likert, .(age), function(x) llply(x, table)))

names(meltedLikert) <- c("score", "count", "variable", "age")

ggplot(meltedLikert[meltedLikert$variable != "age",], aes(variable, count, fill=score)) + 
  geom_bar(position="dodge", stat="identity") +
  geom_text(data=data.frame(meltedLikert), aes(variable, count, group=score, label=meltedLikert$score), size=4) +
  facet_grid(age ~ .)

enter image description here

How can I label position text so each label of score sits over the corresponding bar for variable top of each bar?

score 19 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:30

As per the answer in the linked question, adding position = position_dodge(width=0.9) to the geom_text call lines up the values:

ggplot(meltedLikert[meltedLikert$variable != "age",], 
       aes(variable, count, fill=score)) + 
  geom_bar(position="dodge", stat="identity") +
  geom_text(data=data.frame(meltedLikert), 
            aes(variable, count, group=score, label=meltedLikert$score), 
            position = position_dodge(width=0.9),
            size=4) +
  facet_grid(age ~ .)

enter image description here

However, I also wanted to point out a few other things. You should no use meltedLikert$score in the aes() call; you should only refer to things in the data frame that is passed as data. Also, meltedLikert is already a data.frame, so calling data.frame() on it is not necessary (though doesn't do any harm).

The real improvement is in how you create your tabulation to begin with. Consider this instead:

tabulatedLikert <- ldply(likert[-1], function(sc) {
  as.data.frame(table(age = likert$age, score = sc))
})
ggplot(tabulatedLikert, aes(x=.id, y=Freq, fill=score)) +
  geom_bar(position="dodge", stat="identity") +
  geom_text(aes(label=score), position=position_dodge(width=0.9), size=4) +
  facet_grid(age ~ .)

enter image description here

You can fix the ordering of the bars by fixing them in the original data:

likert2 <- mutate(likert,
                  score1 = factor(score1, levels=c("unlikely", "likely", "very likely")),
                  score2 = factor(score2, levels=c("disagree", "neutral", "agree")),
                  score3 = factor(score3, levels=c("no", "maybe", "yes")))
tabulatedLikert2 <- ldply(likert2[-1], function(sc) {
  as.data.frame(table(age = likert2$age, score = sc))
})
ggplot(tabulatedLikert2, aes(x=.id, y=Freq, fill=score)) +
  geom_bar(position="dodge", stat="identity") +
  geom_text(aes(label=score), position=position_dodge(width=0.9), size=4) +
  facet_grid(age ~ .)

enter image description here

Of course, at this point, the colors don't actually add anything since everything is labeled directly on the graph, so I'd just get rid of them entirely.

ggplot(tabulatedLikert2, aes(x=.id, y=Freq, group=score)) +
  geom_bar(position="dodge", stat="identity", fill="gray70") +
  geom_text(aes(label=score), position=position_dodge(width=0.9), size=4) +
  facet_grid(age ~ .)

enter image description here

Another possiblity: `ggplot(tabulatedLikert2, aes(x=score, y=Freq)) + geom_bar(stat="identity", fill="gray70") + geom_text(aes(label=score), size=4) + facet_grid(age ~ .id, scales="free_x")` — bdemarest, Aug 29 '13 at 20:57

Label bar plot with geom_text in ggplot

1 Answers1

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