How to Incorporate Statistics With Graphs & Illustrations
If you are making a presentation or writing an article that involves statistics, your work will be more presentable or readable if you incorporate graphs and illustrations into your project. Graphs and illustrations make statistics easier to understand: proportions and percentages can sound confusing to the ear, but when they are presented in a chart format, they come to life. Choose the best type of graph or illustration to include in your project by following a few basic rules.
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Instructions
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Study your data to determine what type of data you have. For example, you may have sales growth over time or you may have market share figures. You may have data that requires a comparison---such as comparing your test results to other test results---or you might have data that you aren't even sure have a relationship.
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Match your data type to a suitable type of graph. Make a line graph if you are trying to track changes over time, a pie chart if you want to compare parts to a whole, a bar graph if you want to compare items in groups or track changes over time, an area graph if you have several groups of items you want to track over time and an X-Y plot if you want to find out if there's a relationship between two different groups or items.
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Figure out how many charts or graphs to include in your presentation or document. As a general rule of thumb, use one graph per presentation slide or document page. Too many graphs can dilute your message and make your project look fussy.
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Tips & Warnings
Identify your most important information and use that as a highlight in your project instead of trying to graph or illustrate everything.
References
- Photo Credit pie graph image by Tomislav from Fotolia.com
