Member Training: How to Avoid Common Graphical Mistakes

by guest contributer 

Good graphs are extremely powerful tools for communicating quantitative information clearly and accurately.

Unfortunately, many of the graphs we see today confuse, mislead, or deceive the reader.

These poor graphs result from two key limitations. One is a graph designer who isn’t familiar with the principles of effective graphs. The other is software with a poor choice of default settings.

In this training, we examine some of these graphical mistakes. In most cases, very simple changes make the graphs easier for the reader to understand. We will also discuss some common mistakes with tables, along with their solutions.
We end with introducing some useful, little-known graph forms. These forms communicate the data more clearly than the everyday graphs that are more commonly used.
In this Stat’s Amore training guest instructor Naomi B. Robbins will critique examples of common graphing and table mistakes, show you how they can be easily corrected, and add some graphs to your repertoire that you may not have hear of before.
Note: This training is an exclusive benefit to members of the Statistically Speaking Membership Program and part of the Stat’s Amore Trainings Series. Each Stat’s Amore Training is approximately 90 minutes long.

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About the Instructor

Naomi is a consultant and seminar leader who specializes in the graphical display of data. She offers keynotes, lunch and learns, short courses and workshops to train employees of corporations and organizations on the effective presentation of data. She also reviews documents and presentations for clients, suggesting improvements or alternative presentations as appropriate. She is the author of Creating More Effective Graphs. Naomi is a Past-chair of the Statistical Graphics Section of the American Statistical Association and is the organizer of the Data Visualization New York Meetup.

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