How to Construct a Pie Chart
Although some people do well with tables of numbers, many people like to be able to link statistics to images. A pie chart helps people do just that. By showing proportions as different sized slices of a pie, pie charts make it much easier to remember data that might seem meaningless otherwise.
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Things You'll Need
- Pencil
- Paper
- Compass
- Protractor
- Calculator
- Ruler
- Highlighters
- Black felt-tipped marker
Instructions
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1
Add all the individual pieces of data together to get a whole. For example, if you were doing a pie chart on religion on your street and you found 20 Discordians, 15 Subgenuises and 45 Pastafarians, you would add them together to get 80 people.
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2
Divide each individual group by the total sum. For example, 20 Discordians / 80 total people = 0.25.
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3
Calculate the number of degrees each group takes up in your pie. There are 360 degrees in a circle, so multiply each decimal by 360. So the Discordians would take up 0.25 x 390 = 90 degrees.
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4
Put a dot on a piece of paper. Put the tip of the compass in the center of that dot and trace a circle around it. Draw a straight line from the center of the circle to one of the edges.
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5
Use a protractor to measure the first slice of the pie. Place the 0 degree mark of the protractor on the line you made and measure the appropriate number of degrees around the circle. Make a dot on the edge of the circle to mark the boundary of the first slice. For example, you would measure from 0 to 90 degrees and mark the circle for Discordians.
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6
Draw a line from the center of the circle to the dot on the edge. Then, measure the next slice from that edge. Draw another dot and another line. Continue until you have drawn all the slices.
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7
Label each piece of the pie with a name and a percentage. The easiest way to get a percentage value is to multiply the decimal you got in step 2 by 100. So Discordians are 0.25 x 100, or 25 percent of the total.
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8
Trace over all the lines, words and numbers with a black felt-tipped marker. Then lightly color in each piece of the pie with a different colored highlighter. This step is optional, but it will create better visual impact.
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Tips & Warnings
The total of your groups might be a few percentage points above or below 100 percent. This can happen when you round numbers off, and it is nothing to worry about.
