Let's say we had this data set
This is a collection of whole numbers and decimal values. We need to standardize everything so every value is the same length exactly. Something like "12" involves 2 digits while "12.7" involves 3 digits. We can rewrite 12 into 12.0 to standardize everything to 3 digits. Same goes for 13 into 13.0 and 14 into 14.0
This is the new updated list
- 12.0
- 12.7
- 13.0
- 13.1
- 13.5
- 14.0
- 14.9
Everything now has a decimal point and involves exactly 3 digits.
From here, we'll form the stems: 12, 13, 14
The leaf values are the last digit. Each separate leaf digit refers to one exact number from the original data set.
Refer to the stem-and-leaf plot below.
As you can see, something like 13.0 is smaller than 13.1; therefore, the whole numbers are smaller than the decimal values for a given stem only.
