Diagrams for hierarchical models – we need your opinion by John K. Kruschke.
If you haven’t done any good deeds lately, here is a chance to contribute to the common good.
From the post:
When trying to understand a hierarchical model, I find it helpful to make a diagram of the dependencies between variables. But I have found the traditional directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) to be incomplete at best and downright confusing at worst. Therefore I created differently styled diagrams for Doing Bayesian Data Analysis (DBDA). I have found them to be very useful for explaining models, inventing models, and programming models. But my idiosyncratic impression might be only that, and I would like your insights about the pros and cons of the two styles of diagrams. (emphasis in original)
John’s post has the details of the different diagram styles.
Which do you like better?
John is also the author of: Doing Bayesian data analysis : a tutorial with R and BUGS. My library system doesn’t have a copy but I can report that it has gotten really good reviews.