Changing the aspect ratio of a scatter plot in STATA

This took me forever to figure out, because I kept searching for terms like "change width" which directs you to line width code. Finally I found a snippet of code for xsize and searching that led me to this handy tutorial on aspect ratios and other fun scatter plot techniques.

My code:

twoway (scatter mathach newid, ylabel(-10(5)35)) (scatter meanmathach newid, connect(1) clcolor(red) sort), ysize(3) xsize(5)

Per the bolded code, the resulting graph will be produced in a 3x5 aspect ratio.

Fun with GLM links

I can never keep this straight: When to use link(log) vs. link(logit) in generalized linear models:

Use link(log) when you are after relative risks.
Use link(logit) when you are after odds ratios.

Making notes in your code: STATA vs R

I'm used to coding in R at this point, so it took me a second to figure this out:

# This is a note in R code

vs.

* This is a note in STATA code

Other small things that are hard to get use to: in R, if your code spills into the next line, you just keep typing (I usually indent just to keep it looking clean); but in STATA, you have to include "///" at the end of an unfinished line of code, to tell it to continue reading on the next line.

STATA seems to stop running code when it encounters a problem (?) vs. R which keeps going, throwing up error messages when appropriate but following thru to the end.