Question: I have eliminated labels on the y axis because only the relative amount is really important.

```
w <- c(34170,24911,20323,14290,9605,7803,7113,6031,5140,4469)
plot(1:length(w), w, type="b", xlab="Number of clusters",
     ylab="Within-cluster variance",
     main="K=5 eliminates most of the within-cluster variance",
     cex.main=1.5,
     cex.lab=1.2,
     font.main=20,
     yaxt='n',lab=c(length(w),5,7), # no ticks on y axis, all ticks on x
     family="Calibri Light")

```

![cluster plot](https://i.stack.imgur.com/c2ako.png)

However, suppressing those tick labels leaves a lot of white space between the y axis label ("Within-cluster variance") and the y axis. Is there a way to nudge it back over? If I somehow set the (invisible) tick labels to go *inside* the axis, would the axis label settles along the axis?

Answer: 
Try setting `ylab=""` in your `plot` call and use `title` to set the label of the y-axis manually. Using `line` you could adjust the position of the label, e.g.:

```
plot(1:length(w), w, type="b", xlab="Number of clusters", ylab="",
     main="K=5 eliminates most of the within-cluster variance",
     cex.main=1.5,
     cex.lab=1.2,
     font.main=20,
     yaxt='n',lab=c(length(w),5,7), # no ticks on y axis, all ticks on x
     family="Calibri Light")

title(ylab="Within-cluster variance", line=0, cex.lab=1.2, family="Calibri Light")

```

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6dwlR.png)

Please read `?title` for more details.
Adjust `mgp`, see `?par`

```
title(ylab="Within-cluster variance", mgp=c(1,1,0), family="Calibri Light",cex.lab=1.2)

```

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ea99R.png)