move axis labels ggplot

Question

I have produced a fact graph in ggplot2 and the x axis title (bottom) is touching the scale values slightly (it's worsened when I plot to .pdf device). How do I move the axis title down a smidge?

DF<-structure(list(race = structure(c(3L, 1L, 3L, 2L, 3L, 1L, 2L,  2L, 2L, 3L, 2L, 1L, 3L, 3L, 3L, 3L, 2L, 1L, 2L, 3L), .Label = c("asian",  "black", "white"), class = "factor"), gender = structure(c(1L,  1L, 1L, 2L, 1L, 2L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 2L, 2L, 1L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 1L, 1L,  2L, 2L, 2L), .Label = c("female", "male"), class = "factor"),      score = c(0.0360497844302483, 0.149771418578119, 0.703017688328021,      1.32540102136392, 0.627084455719946, -0.320051801571444,      0.852281028633536, -0.440056896755573, 0.621765489966213,      0.58981396944136, 1.95257757882381, 0.127301498272644, -0.0906338578670778,      -0.637727808028146, -0.449607617033673, 1.03162398117388,      0.334259623567608, 0.0912327543652576, -0.0789977852804991,      0.511696466039959), time1 = c(75.9849658266583, 38.7148843859919,      54.3512613852158, 37.3210772390582, 83.8061071736856, 14.3853324033061,      79.2285735003004, 31.1324602891428, 22.2294730114138, 26.427263191766,      40.5529893144888, 19.2463281412667, 8.45085646487301, 97.6770352620696,      61.1874163107771, 31.3727683430548, 99.4155144857594, 79.0996849438957,      21.2504885323517, 94.1079332400361)), .Names = c("race",  "gender", "score", "time1"), class = "data.frame", row.names = c(NA,  -20L))   require(ggplot2) p <- ggplot(DF, aes(score, time1, group=gender)) p + geom_point(aes(shape=19)) + facet_grid(race~gender) + scale_x_continuous('BLAH BLAH') +  scale_y_continuous('Some MOre Of theat Good Blahing')  

In my data BLAH BLAH is touching the numbers. I need it to move down. How?

Answer 1

You can adjust the positioning of the x-axis title using:

+ opts(axis.title.x = theme_text(vjust=-0.5)) 

Play around with the -0.5 "vertical justification" parameter until it suits you/your display device.

Answer 2

This is an easy workaround, based on the answer provided here

Just add a line break; \n, at the start of your axes title; xlab("\nYour_x_Label") (Or at the end if you need to move your y label).

It doesn't offer as much control as Eduardo's suggestion in the comments; theme(axis.title.x = element_text(vjust=-0.5)), or use of margin, but it is much simpler!