How to display `geom_boxplot` and `geom_dotplot` spaced in ggplot2 when plot both at same time?

Question

I am working on a project and trying to reproduce following plot.

Here is my attempt.

test<-data.frame(
  x=factor(rep(1:3, each=20)),
  y=runif(60)
)
p<-ggplot(test, aes(x=x, y=y,fill=x)) +
  geom_boxplot(width=0.2) +
  geom_dotplot(binaxis = "y")
p

But boxplot and dotplot are crowded together in my attempt. Any advice is appreciated.

Answer 1

You can nudge the position of geoms by using position = position_nudge(...) . You can use this to offset the boxplot and dotplot in opposite directions. Example below:

library(ggplot2)
test<-data.frame(
  x=factor(rep(1:3, each=20)),
  y=runif(60)
)
ggplot(test, aes(x=x, y=y,fill=x)) +
  geom_boxplot(width=0.2, position = position_nudge(x = -0.1)) +
  geom_dotplot(binaxis = "y", position = position_nudge(x = 0.1))
#> `stat_bindot()` using `bins = 30`. Pick better value with `binwidth`.

^{Created on 2021-04-05 by the reprex package (v1.0.0)}

Answer 2

I would use the position_nudge(x = 0, y = 0) function. This allows you to translate elements of a plot in x and y. The function can be used as the position argument in the geom_xxxx() functions. Such as by using geom_boxplot(..., position = position_nudge(x = -0.1)) which translates the boxplots 0.1 to the left.

library(tidyverse)

test<-data.frame(
  x=factor(rep(1:3, each=20)),
  y=runif(60)
)
p<-ggplot(test, aes(x=x, y=y,fill=x)) +
  #Translate left
  geom_boxplot(width=0.2, position = position_nudge(-0.1)) +
  #Translate right
  geom_dotplot(binaxis = "y", width = 0.2, position = position_nudge(x = 0.1))
p
#> `stat_bindot()` using `bins = 30`. Pick better value with `binwidth`.

^{Created on 2021-04-04 by the reprex package (v2.0.0)}