The native graphics options in R are very powerful and useful for generating output. However, the packages available for R extend your capability far beyond what is natively available in R. The most commonly used package for non-native graphics is ggplot2.

• Getting Started with qplot – A brief introduction to qplot(), the training wheels plotting function of ggplot2. The syntax of qplot() is similar to the familiar plot() function available in base R.
• ggplot Symposeum – This hour-long presentation was given at Vanderbilt University. Some of the code used has since been deprecated, however this should give you an idea of the power of ggplot2. The code used in the presentation is here.