Trouble with ggplot

[JimmyK14]

Hey all, I'm brand new to R and would appreciate some help. None of my friends could figure out what is wrong with my code or data, but every time I plot a graph it ends up looking something like this (see picture attached). This happens to almost any graph I plot so potentially something is wrong with my computer? If anyone could give me a hand it would be much appreciated.

This is the code I used:
ggplot(data = economic_consideration,
aes(x = 'ethnicity', y = 'percentage employed', colour = State)) + geom_point()

[Matthias]

You need to add backticks for the column names:
A small hint to remember this: if the column names are coloured in the same text as ordinary text it is interpreted as text and not as a variable. (in my RStudio setting it's red, but this isn't the default)

library(tidyverse)

# generating fake data with long column names
cars = mpg %>% 
  rename("mpg in the city" = cty,
         "mpg on the highway" = hwy)

# this doesn't work as the columns are interpreted as text
ggplot(cars, aes(x = 'mpg in the city',
                 y = 'mpg on the highway')) +
         geom_jitter()

# this is working       
ggplot(cars, aes(x = `mpg in the city`,
                 y = `mpg on the highway`)) +
  geom_jitter()

PS: for the ethnicity you don't need any ticks at all.

[williaml]

@JimmyK14

ggplot(data = economic_consideration,
aes(x = 'ethnicity', y = 'percentage employed', colour = State)) + geom_point()

Do it without the apostrophe:

ggplot(data = economic_consideration,
aes(x = ethnicity, y = percentage employed , colour = State)) + geom_point()

[JimmyK14]

Ok thank you. The back ticks didn't change anything but I added geom_jitter and got an actual graph. But now I've run into two more problems.
Firstly, the graph has a constant in it, that is victorians per 100,000 features at the same point on every x co-ordinate.
Secondly, when I try to add a scale with: scale_y_continuous(breaks = seq(etc...) it tells me -> Error: Discrete value supplied to continuous scale
The data is very clearly continuous, so I'm very confused. Could anyone give me a hand?

[williaml]

What does your dataset look like? Can you provide a reprex?

FAQ: How to do a minimal reproducible example ( reprex ) for beginners

A minimal reproducible example consists of the following items: A minimal dataset, necessary to reproduce the issue The minimal runnable code necessary to reproduce the issue, which can be run on the given dataset, and including the necessary information on the used packages. Let's quickly go over each one of these with examples: Minimal Dataset (Sample Data) You need to provide a data frame that is small enough to be (reasonably) pasted on a post, but big enough to reproduce your issue. Let's say, as an example, that you are working with the iris data frame head(iris) #> Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species #> 1 5.1 3.5 1.4 0.…