start with… As always, purpose needs to be considered: PURPOSE OF DATA DISPLAYS. ALL OF THEM. The reason for these displays—rather then just putting numbers in your paragraphs—is to help your readers VISUALIZE info. PURPOSE OF YOUR DISPLAY? What do you hope to prove with this data? How will looking at the data visually help make your point? What’s the most crucial point you need to convey with the particular data display you’re working on?

pie charts - Show pieces of a whole; represent percentages - Always label your pie slices - Must have 100% Figure 2: Leading Causes of Death for Youth and Adults (2003)

simple bar charts used to represent one data group Number of viruses Year

complex bar charts used to represent more than one data group

complex bar charts

line graphs used to plot interval data

line graphs

scatter plots used to plot data points

data maps follow spatial contours; used to geographically/spatially represent data

data maps

pictograms or pictographs data represented by pictures

bad, bad data displays

bad, bad data displays

bad, bad data displays

bad, bad data displays

bad, bad data displays

bad, bad data displays And what I thought was my favorite…

bad, bad data displays Until I saw this! 100%

Some data: Weekly Beverage Consumption Matching graph to purpose Some data: Weekly Beverage Consumption MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN coffee 35 10 9 29 24 Soft drinks 34 43 37 Fruit juice 30 39 4 20 12 water 42 15

Line chart? While this does show change across time, it gives us little visual info. It doesn't really serve any purpose

Pie chart? If the purpose of the data is to reveal trends in overall consumption, a pie chart is inappropriate. It should only be used to reveal percentages

Bar chart? if the data is supposed to compare consumption across the week, a bar chart would work best

Stacked bar chart! This kind of bar chart, however, shows both a comparison of percentages and consumption across time. The most information can be determined from this chart.

creating data displays launch Microsoft Word in a new document, select Insert  Picture  Chart create displays for the data you have decided on from the data sets online Open the data entry table and enter your data; the chart will automatically be created as a bar chart. Click on the “chart type” icon. Choose the appropriate chart type.

anatomy of a chart

anatomy of a chart Title should be large and comprehensive Be sure the legend is visible X Axis - If you have non-numerical data, it goes here Y Axis – always numerical

Last Thoughts While this may seem like a relatively simple set of tasks, it really is harder than one might think. It also is more time consuming that you might think. Take advantage of class time!! refer back to this PowerPoint to make sure you’re using the correct display for your data make sure to title and label your data displays appropriately (Word, Excel, and whatever other applications you use might provide some template/help with this, but you might have to access deeper features to add labels not default-offered by the application)