Adding a regression line on a ggplot

Question

I'm trying hard to add a regression line on a ggplot. I first tried with abline but I didn't manage to make it work. Then I tried this...

data = data.frame(x.plot=rep(seq(1,5),10),y.plot=rnorm(50))
ggplot(data,aes(x.plot,y.plot))+stat_summary(fun.data=mean_cl_normal) +
   geom_smooth(method='lm',formula=data$y.plot~data$x.plot)

But it is not working either.

Answer 1

In general, to provide your own formula you should use arguments x and y that will correspond to values you provided in ggplot() - in this case x will be interpreted as x.plot and y as y.plot. You can find more information about smoothing methods and formula via the help page of function stat_smooth() as it is the default stat used by geom_smooth().

ggplot(data,aes(x.plot, y.plot)) +
  stat_summary(fun.data=mean_cl_normal) + 
  geom_smooth(method='lm', formula= y~x)

If you are using the same x and y values that you supplied in the ggplot() call and need to plot the linear regression line then you don't need to use the formula inside geom_smooth(), just supply the method="lm".

ggplot(data,aes(x.plot, y.plot)) +
  stat_summary(fun.data= mean_cl_normal) + 
  geom_smooth(method='lm')