Tips for choosing charts If your data is discrete, choose bar charts or histograms, or if the data is continuous, choose line charts or area charts. The scatter plot, bubble chart, or line chart are all good ways to illustrate relationships between data points. Show
Which type of graph would best be used to count or group data?In pie graphs, the division of a group is often more visually appealing than that of a line graph. An overly complicated pie chart can be hard to understand if it has too many slices. Comparing quantities is one of the most useful uses of bar graphs. Which graph is used to show comparison categories?The comparison of categories is shown in a bar graph. Which type of graph should be used to show grouped data?A line graph can display many kinds of data and illustrate trends or progress over time. Charts with continuous data sets should be created using it. What type of graph is used for data?It's likely that line graphs, bar graphs, and histograms, pie charts, and Cartesian graphs are the most common. There are general uses for both of them, and they are best suited to quite different tasks. To represent the independence between numbers, you would use bar graphs. Which graph to use for which data?Line charts are better for identifying trends than bar charts when comparing information. Pie charts should be used only for simple compositions and comparisons, not for comparisons or distributions. Scatter plots represent relationships and distributions well, but pie charts are better suited to simple compositions and comparisons. When comparing things over time or to measure changes, bar graphs work best when the changes are large. However, they do not work well when the changes are small. What is the best graph to show comparison?Comparing independent values in a bar chart or column chart We, as readers, are particularly good at comparing the bars in a bar chart (in contrast to segments in a pie chart, for instance), so these charts can be used to compare values. What graph is useful for comparing values for different things?An example is comparing the number of tornadoes in different cities, which can be done using bar graphs. What is a histogram vs bar graph?Bar graphs are graphical displays of categorical data that use rectangular bars whose length corresponds to their respective values. Data are displayed graphically as a histogram when ranges of numbers are grouped into vertical bars representing each range of data. How do you graph comparisons?What graph is best for data?In a box plot, you can see distributions based on statistical summary, while a column histogram is good for detecting the frequency of an event. The best way to visualize a large dataset is with scatter plots. How are graphs used to represent data?Data can be visualized using graphs to show connections between the data points. With graphs, information that is too large or complex to express adequately in text and in a limited amount of space can be presented visually. A graph can provide information about trends or explain the relationship between variables in the data. What can graphs and charts of data be used for?A graph or chart is a visual representation of data that shows relationships between data so it can be understood and remembered more easily. Graphs and charts are frequently used to show trends, patterns, and relationships between data sets. What graph is used for comparison?Comparing facts is done with bar graphs. It is a visual way to compare quantities within different categories or groups. Bar graphs make it easier to understand relationships. Although bar graphs do not have to be read accurately, they can be difficult. What are the 3 types of graphs we use to compare data?The use of bar graphs when comparing quantities is particularly useful when using line graphs, pie charts, and bar graphs. In situations such as the one shown in Figure 5, where you are studying the populations of several different countries, bar graphs can be useful for illustrating relationships between their populations. What is the difference between a histogram and bar graph?The histogram is used to show distributions of variables, while the bar chart is used to compare them. Using a histogram, you plot quantitative data grouped into intervals or bins whereas using a bar chart, you tative data with ranges of the data grouped into bins or intervals while bar charts plot categorical data. A histogram cannot be rearranged by rearrangement of its bars. What is the difference between a bar chart and a histogram quizlet?When graphing qualitative variables, a bar graph represents a category (or class) while for quantitative variables a histogram defines groupings of similar data values. When would you use a histogram?In cases where you have continuous measurements and would like to see the distribution of values and find outliers, histograms are useful. You can use bins on these graphs in order to represent your continuous measurements. What is a histogram graph best used for?One of the most popular graphing tools is the histogram. Interval data are measured continuously or discretely and can be summarized using it. Frequently, it is used to display the major features of data distribution in an easy-to-read format.
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Bar Charts, Error Bars and Dot PlotsAs noted previously, bar charts can be problematic. Here is another one presenting means and error bars, but the error bars are misleading because they only extend in one direction. A better alternative would have been to to use full error bars with a scatter plot, as illustrated previously (right).
Consider the four graphs below presenting the incidence of cancer by type. The upper left graph unnecessary uses bars, which take up a lot of ink. This layout also ends up making the fonts for the types of cancer too small. Small font is also a problem for the dot plot at the upper right, and this one also has unnecessary grid lines across the entire width. The graph at the lower left has more readable labels and uses a simple dot plot, but the rank order is difficult to figure out. The graph at the lower right is clearly the best, since the labels are readable, the magnitude of incidence is shown clearly by the dot plots, and the cancers are sorted by frequency.
Single Continuous Numeric VariableIn this situation a cumulative distribution function conveys the most information and requires no grouping of the variable. A box plot will show selected quantiles effectively, and box plots are especially useful when stratifying by multiple categories of another variable. Histograms are also possible. Consider the examples below.
Two Variables
The two graphs below summarize BMI (Body Mass Index) measurements in four categories, i.e., younger and older men and women. The graph on the left shows the means and 95% confidence interval for the mean in each of the four groups. This is easy to interpret, but the viewer cannot see that the data is actually quite skewed. The graph on the right shows the same information presented as a box plot. With this presentation method one gets a better understanding of the skewed distribution and how the groups compare. The next example is a scatter plot with a superimposed smoothed line of prediction. The shaded region embracing the blue line is a representation of the 95% confidence limits for the estimated prediction. This was created using "ggplot" in the R programming language. Source: Frank E. Harrell Jr. on graphics: http://biostat.mc.vanderbilt.edu/twiki/pub/Main/StatGraphCourse/graphscourse.pdf (page 121) Multivariate Data
The example below shows the use of multiple panels. Source: Cleveland S. The Elements of Graphing Data. Hobart Press, Summit, NJ, 1994. |