Specialty plots

Most of the figures so far map a variable or two onto a familiar geom. The ones in this part are different: each answers a specific question we get asked of a study, and each carries some analysis inside the constructor rather than just drawing points and lines.

• A CONSORT diagram accounts for every patient from screening to the analyzed cohort – it is the figure a reviewer checks first.
• Alluvial and Sankey plots show how groups flow between states: pre- to post-operative grade, or cluster membership across a range of cluster counts.
• A covariate-balance plot shows whether matching or weighting actually closed the gap between treatment groups, and a goodness-of-follow-up plot shows whether follow-up is complete enough to trust.

The chapters that follow build each one from sample data.