---
layout: post
title: "How to set the order and value of factors in R  using factor and fct_reorder (CC148)"
blurb: "Plotting with categorical and ordinal data"
author: "PD Schloss"
date: 2021-09-23 11:00
comments: false
youtube: WRirYQBPq9s
start_hash: 375053f09addb89ad41ab3ff450a5de6233849b9
end_hash: cfbbd59dc4d9102c52b002c795ed6d5e480b207a
---

Ever wonder how to set the order of categorical variables in a figure generated in R? Factors! Changing the order of categorical values can be useful in figures when the data are ordinal or when you want to order the values by another variable. Pat will use the base R `factor` function and the forcats `fct_reorder` function. The data depict the percentage of people in 15 countries who would be willing to receive the COVID-19 vaccine as of August and October of 2020.

Pat uses `factor` and the `fct_reorder` function from the `forcats` package as well as functions from the `ggplot2`, `dplyr`, `showtext`, `ggtext` and `glue` packages in RStudio

<iframe style="margin: 0 auto;display:block;" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/{{ page.youtube }}" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>


## Code

You can browse the state of the repository at the
* [beginning of the episode](https://github.com/riffomonas/vaccination_attitudes/tree/{{ page.start_hash }})
* [end of the episode](https://github.com/riffomonas/vaccination_attitudes/tree/{{ page.end_hash }})


### Data

The `august_october_2020.csv` data is available in the [GitHub repository](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/riffomonas/vaccination_attitudes/3f39b9e09618144874ced760c9a6332498e3a19c/august_october_2020.csv).

```
X.1,Total Agree - August 2020,Total Agree - October 2020
Total,77,73
India,87,87
China,97,85
South Korea,84,83
Brazil,88,81
Australia,88,79
United Kingdom,85,79
Mexico,75,78
Canada,76,76
Germany,67,69
Japan,75,69
South Africa,64,68
Italy,67,65
Spain,72,64
United States,67,64
France,59,54
```
