Eric Rasmusen , erasmuse@indiana March 10, 2014 Graphs and Tables

1. Eric Rasmusen, erasmuse@indiana.edu March 10, 2014 Graphs and Tables

4. Uniform Crime Reports: Crime in the United States, Section IV

5. How can this table be improved? http://rru.worldbank.org/Documents/PapersLinks/RI%20Final%20Guatemalai.pdf

6. Principles of Tables 1. Keep the data-to-ink ratio high. 2. Leave out dividing lines and boxes unless you have a good reason for them. 3. Leave off repetitive, useless numbers. 4. Don't use just capital letters. 5. Circle or otherwise mark important numbers, in particular, ones you mention in the text or talk. 6. Make the table self-contained. Don't require the reader to refer to the text or a previous table. Include the source and the units of measurement. 7. Number and title every table.

7. Mixed Graphics and Tables

9. Govt. % of GDP 1970 and 1979

11. Good Graphics

12. Books by Edward Tufte The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (1983) (pictures of numbers) Envisioning Information (1990) (pictures of nouns) Visual Explanations (1997) (pictures of verbs). Beautiful Evidence A lot of this is from Tufte.

13. Anscombe’s Quartet: The summary statistics are all the same, but graphing them shows how they are different.

14. dfgdgf

15. (1) Klass uses horizontal bars. Why? (2) Why is the order of the countries not alphabetical?

16. Note the “marginal distribution” on the axes.

17. Female cancer rates Male cancer rates What do these maps tell us?

18. Some Good Graphics

19. http://www.bcg.com/publications/files/Balancing_Act_Implementing_an_Integrated_Strategy_for_Value_Creation_Nov05.pdfhttp://www.bcg.com/publications/files/Balancing_Act_Implementing_an_Integrated_Strategy_for_Value_Creation_Nov05.pdf

20. http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/minard

21. http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0000SI&topic_id=1&topic=Ask%20E%2eT%2eNew York Times, March 20, 2003, p. D1

23. Bad Graphics

24. The Deceptive Use of Size

28. A Moire pattern (“more- ay”)

31. Pie Charts– bad 3D

33. http://rru.worldbank.org/Documents/PapersLinks/RI%20Final%20Guatemalai.pdfhttp://rru.worldbank.org/Documents/PapersLinks/RI%20Final%20Guatemalai.pdf How can this map be improved?

34. Principles of Graphs • 1. Keep the data-to-ink ratio high. • 2. Erase data-ink for useless data. • 3. Erase non-data ink. • 4. Don't use Moire patterns. • 5. Use boxes and grids only if they help. • 6. Don't use cute pictures that obscure what you are saying. • 7. Consider labelling individual data points of special interest. • 8. Write text horizontally, not vertically. • 9. Make the figure self-contained. Don't require the reader to refer to the text or a previous table. Include the source and the units of measurement. • 10. Number and title every figure.

35. A Chart with Vertical Bars, a Legend, and a Gray Background

36. Scaling Effects: Did Unemployment Hardly Change?

37. The Two-Axis Solution to Scaling Effects

38. Excel Charts • 1. Don’t use a legend (side box with variables being graphed) without good reason. You can often put the variable and units of measurement in the title. • 2. Don’t use sideways or vertical writing on the axes • 3. Except for dates, use a comma to separate thousands (this is an Excel option under Number). • 4. Don’t use a chart area border unless you have good reason. http://www.rasmusen.org/g492/fed-debt-chart.xls/

39. http://www.bcg.com/publications/files/Balancing_Act_Implementing_an_Integrated_Strategy_for_Value_Creation_Nov05.pdfhttp://www.bcg.com/publications/files/Balancing_Act_Implementing_an_Integrated_Strategy_for_Value_Creation_Nov05.pdf

40. http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/pdf/nypdemergency.pdf

41. http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/pdf/nypdemergency.pdf