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In the image in this post how can I add standard deviation error bars in Excel?

enter image description here

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    Hi, and welcome to SuperUser. Unfortunately, I have no idea what you're asking. Part of this is due to the lack of punctuation. In addition you use terminology that I never heard of. Can you please edit your post to add dots and comma's and probably exchange these words to something everyone can understand?
    – LPChip
    Jan 2, 2018 at 14:59

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Looking at your graph, you have labeled the y-axis as "Average Exam scores", so I assume that you have multiple test scores for each of the students, and that you can calculate a mean and standard deviation for each student.

A mocked-up data table with exam scores is shown below. The average test score and standard deviation for the first student is calculated with:

=AVERAGE(B2:F2) and =STDEV(B2:F2)

and these are filled down to get the values for the other students.

enter image description here

To display the sd's on your graph:

  1. Right-click on one of the columns and choose "Format Data Series..." from the popup menu.
  2. Select "Error Bars" in the left panel, and choose the type and style of the bars and end caps. Also select the radio button for "Custom" as the error amount:

enter image description here

  1. Click the "Specify Value" button and specify the range holding your sd values for both the positive and negative error values. You specify the range by clicking the icon at the right and then click-drag to select the range of cells:

enter image description here

  1. Click OK to exit the dialog boxes, and you should see the error bars on your graph:

enter image description here

Note: I'm using Excel 2011 for Mac, so the menus and dialog boxes may be different in the version you use. If you have trouble, add a comment describing your results and we'll try to sort it out. Good luck.

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  • @tammie, if you found this answer helpful, please click on the gray check mark at the top left of the answer to accept it and remove it from the unanswered queue. Thanks. Jan 2, 2018 at 22:06

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