# Percentiles and quartiles in the same graph

• I
I don't know where to put this question. So, I am trying in this forum.

I have this dataset [1] that contains the duration of an execution with an input size from 1.5GB to 6GB. This dataset also contains the percentile 5%, 95%, and the 1st and 3rd quartile.

I am thinking in creating a gnuplot graph with candlesticks that will contain the data of the percentiles in the whiskersbars, and the boxes will contain the 1st and 3rd quartile. My goal of gathering percentiles and quartiles is to see how much the results are similar.

Is it ok to depict in the same graph the percentiles and the quartiles?

[1] My dataset

Code:
size    duration        percentile5        1stquartile        3rdquartile        percentile95
1500    1177.31        1156.13            1090.47            1239.19            1424.83
3000    2021.48        1867.93            1440                 2317.33            3662.88
4500    3349.63        3885.14            2336.83            4376.49            4606.48
6000    3892.96        3785.14            3112.24            4790.24            5812.19

micromass
Staff Emeritus
Homework Helper
Is it ok to depict in the same graph the percentiles and the quartiles?

Yes, of course.

Note however that if you make a box-whisker plot then you are not exactly following the usual practice of constructing it. The whiskers mean something different in a standard box-whisker plot than what you intend. So if you're presenting this to people, then perhaps using the box-whisker format is not a good idea since it is confusing. I'm sure you can come up with many other representations, like a graph of size vs duration where the different percentiles are all connected by the same line. Or using error bars...

For example:

But yes, giving percentiles and quartiles in one plot is definitely ok.