dot plot Cleveland dot plot Cleveland dot plot is a dot plot which plots points that each belong to one of several categories. They are an alternative to bar charts or pie charts, and look somewhat like a horizontal bar chart where the bars are replaced by a dots at the values associated with each category. Compared to (vertical) bar charts and pie charts, Cleveland argues that dot plots allow more accurate interpretation of the graph by readers by making the labels easier to read, reducing non-data ink (or graph clutter) and supporting table look-up.which