Sample Spreadsheet Charts

1. Sample Spreadsheet & Charts Lab 5 Introduction Spreadsheet (Excel, Lotus)  and statistical programs (SPSS, SAS, STATA) are very powerful. They allow anyone who is willing to spend the time to generate useful numbers of just about everything.  Sometimes, however, to truly get the point across, a chart of the data can say what is needed much more efficiently than the data itself.  Charts can also be used to provide insights into relationships and distributional characteristics that the data or typical linear statistics fail to show. For both of these tasks the charting features of Excel, Clarisworks, Microsoft Works and  SPSS  are excellent tools. Personally I perfer Excel as my basic chart creating tool. Charts or graphs have advantages over raw data in several different aspects.  They allow a visual presentation. To look at a well designed chart can sometimes provide possible correlations many times faster than examination of the data itself.  Why would one use charts over just a standard spreadsheet? Introduction Spreadsheet (Excel, Lotus)  and statistical programs (SPSS, SAS, STATA) are very powerful. They allow anyone who is willing to spend the time to generate useful numbers of just about everything.  Sometimes, however, to truly get the point across, a chart of the data can say what is needed much more efficiently than the data itself.  Charts can also be used to provide insights into relationships and distributional characteristics that the data or typical linear statistics fail to show. For both of these tasks the charting features of Excel, Clarisworks, Microsoft Works and  SPSS  are excellent tools. Personally I perfer Excel as my basic chart creating tool. Charts or graphs have advantages over raw data in several different aspects.  They allow a visual presentation. To look at a well designed chart can sometimes provide possible correlations many times faster than examination of the data itself.  Why would one use charts over just a standard spreadsheet?

2. Why use Charting ? To explore To present To convince Why use Charting To Explore:  Many times we would like to see if there is a relationship between variables.  Suppose that you wanted to determine if there is a relationship between: a countryâs GNP and the infant mortality rate, between age and the number of deviant acts one may have committed ("opportunity theory"), or between gender and one's view on abortion.  It may be quicker and easier to create a chart to immediately see the possible relationship of variables to one another, rather than paging through raw data or developing and interpreting statistics on the data. To Present:  It seems that at this day and age, at least in American society, we want to be provided with as much information in as little time as possible.  Again, this is where graphing plays a key roll.  It seems that there is no longer any time to sit and read a newspaper in order to find out what is going on.  However, newspapers, such as USA Today  and weekly magazines such as Time and Newsweek (which were early users of charting techniques), seem to understand this phenomena and provide graphs to convey and sum up ideas that they are making in their articles.  Presenting information in graphs provides different ideas in smaller amounts of time. As the Chinese proverb says, ãa picture is worth a thousand words.ä To Convince:  The same way that a graph can be used to present and explore different characteristics of data, it can also be used to convince.  Graphs have the ability to take large amounts of information and make them into exhibitions that are easily used to persuade.  And, as we will comment on, graphs also provide an easy way to distort data to make the point you want to make, or in the common student vernacular, "lie with statistics". Why use Charting To Explore:  Many times we would like to see if there is a relationship between variables.  Suppose that you wanted to determine if there is a relationship between: a countryâs GNP and the infant mortality rate, between age and the number of deviant acts one may have committed ("opportunity theory"), or between gender and one's view on abortion.  It may be quicker and easier to create a chart to immediately see the possible relationship of variables to one another, rather than paging through raw data or developing and interpreting statistics on the data. To Present:  It seems that at this day and age, at least in American society, we want to be provided with as much information in as little time as possible.  Again, this is where graphing plays a key roll.  It seems that there is no longer any time to sit and read a newspaper in order to find out what is going on.  However, newspapers, such as USA Today  and weekly magazines such as Time and Newsweek (which were early users of charting techniques), seem to understand this phenomena and provide graphs to convey and sum up ideas that they are making in their articles.  Presenting information in graphs provides different ideas in smaller amounts of time. As the Chinese proverb says, ãa picture is worth a thousand words.ä To Convince:  The same way that a graph can be used to present and explore different characteristics of data, it can also be used to convince.  Graphs have the ability to take large amounts of information and make them into exhibitions that are easily used to persuade.  And, as we will comment on, graphs also provide an easy way to distort data to make the point you want to make, or in the common student vernacular, "lie with statistics".

3. Our Data