Reading Counts Points or Number of Books
What this handout is about
This handout will depict how to use figures and tables to present complicated information in a way that is accessible and understandable to your reader.
Do I need a effigy/table?
When planning your writing, it is important to consider the best way to communicate information to your audience, peculiarly if y'all program to use information in the grade of numbers, words, or images that volition help yous construct and support your argument. Generally speaking, data summaries may take the form of text, tables or figures. Virtually writers are familiar with textual data summaries and this is oftentimes the best way to communicate simple results. A good dominion of thumb is to come across if you can present your results conspicuously in a sentence or 2. If so, a tabular array or effigy is probably unnecessary. If your information are also numerous or complicated to be described adequately in this amount of space, figures and tables can be constructive ways of conveying lots of information without cluttering upwardly your text. Additionally, they serve as quick references for your reader and tin can reveal trends, patterns, or relationships that might otherwise be difficult to grasp.
And then what'south the deviation between a table and a figure anyway?
Tables present lists of numbers or text in columns and can be used to synthesize existing literature, to explain variables, or to nowadays the wording of survey questions. They are too used to make a paper or article more readable by removing numeric or listed data from the text. Tables are typically used to present raw data, not when you want to show a relationship between variables.
Figures are visual presentations of results. They come in the form of graphs, charts, drawings, photos, or maps. Figures provide visual impact and can effectively communicate your primary finding. Traditionally, they are used to brandish trends and patterns of human relationship, simply they can as well be used to communicate processes or display complicated data but. Figures should non indistinguishable the same data found in tables and vice versa.
Using tables
Tables are easily constructed using your word processor's table office or a spread sail programme such as Excel. Elements of a table include the Legend or Title, Column Titles, and the Table Body (quantitative or qualitative data). They may also include subheadings and footnotes. Call back that it is simply as of import to think near the organisation of tables equally information technology is to think nearly the organization of paragraphs. A well-organized table allows readers to grasp the meaning of the data presented with ease, while a disorganized 1 volition leave the reader confused about the information itself, or the significance of the data.
Championship: Tables are headed past a number followed past a clear, descriptive title or caption. Conventions regarding title length and content vary by subject area. In the hard sciences, a lengthy explanation of tabular array contents may be acceptable. In other disciplines, titles should be descriptive but short, and any caption or interpretation of data should accept identify in the text. Be sure to look up examples from published papers inside your discipline that you can utilize as a model. Information technology may too help to recollect of the title as the "topic sentence" of the table—it tells the reader what the table is well-nigh and how information technology'southward organized. Tables are read from the summit down, so titles go above the body of the tabular array and are left-justified.
Column titles: The goal of column headings is to simplify and analyze the table, allowing the reader to empathise the components of the tabular array rapidly. Therefore, column titles should be brief and descriptive and should include units of analysis.
Table body: This is where your data are located, whether they are numerical or textual. Again, organize your table in a way that helps the reader understand the significance of the data. Be sure to remember about what you want your readers to compare, and put that information in the cavalcade (up and downwardly) rather than in the row (across). In other words, construct your table so that similar elements read down, non across. When using numerical data with decimals, make certain that the decimal points line up. Whole numbers should line upward on the right.
Other table elements
Tables should be labeled with a number preceding the table title; tables and figures are labeled independently of one another. Tables should also have lines demarcating different parts of the table (championship, column headers, data, and footnotes if present). Gridlines or boxes should not exist included in printed versions. Tables may or may non include other elements, such equally subheadings or footnotes.
Quick reference for tables
Tables should be:
- Centered on the page.
- Numbered in the lodge they appear in the text.
- Referenced in the guild they appear in the text.
- Labeled with the table number and descriptive title above the table.
- Labeled with column and/or row labels that describe the data, including units of measurement.
- Set apart from the text itself; text does non flow around the table.
Table 1. Concrete characteristics of the Doctor in the new serial of Doctor Who
| Acme | Historic period (yrs.) | |
| Ninth Doctor | vi'0" | 41 |
| Tenth Doctor | 6'1" | 35 |
| Eleventh Doctor | 5'eleven" | 25 |
Table 2. Physical characteristics of the Md in the new series of Doctor Who
| Personal Appearance | Wardrobe | |
| Ninth Doctor | Close-cropped hair Blueish optics Slightly stockier build | Black leather jacket Nighttime colored, v-necked shirts Black combat boots |
| 10th Doctor | Longer, beat-up hair Brown eyes Very thin build | Biscuit trench coat Pin-striped accommodate and tie Chuck Taylors |
| Eleventh Doctor | Longer, side-swept hair Light-green eyes Slightly stockier build | Brownish tweed jacket Bow necktie and suspenders Blackness Boots |
Using figures
Figures tin can take many forms. They may be graphs, diagrams, photos, drawings, or maps. Recollect deliberately about your purpose and utilize mutual sense to choose the nigh effective figure for communicating the master indicate. If you desire your reader to understand spatial relationships, a map or photograph may be the best choice. If you want to illustrate proportions, experiment with a pie chart or bar graph. If yous want to illustrate the relationship between two variables, try a line graph or a scatterplot (more on various types of graphs below). Although there are many types of figures, similar tables, they share some typical features: captions, the image itself, and any necessary contextual information (which will vary depending on the blazon of figure y'all use).
Figure captions
Figures should be labeled with a number followed by a descriptive caption or title. Captions should be concise only comprehensive. They should describe the data shown, describe attention to important features contained within the effigy, and may sometimes also include interpretations of the data. Figures are typically read from the bottom up, so captions go below the figure and are left-justified.
Image
The most important consideration for figures is simplicity. Choose images the viewer can grasp and interpret clearly and quickly. Consider size, resolution, colour, and prominence of important features. Figures should be large enough and of sufficient resolution for the viewer to make out details without straining their eyes. Besides consider the format your paper will ultimately accept. Journals typically publish figures in black and white, and so whatever information coded by color will be lost to the reader. On the other hand, color might exist a expert choice for papers published to the web or for PowerPoint presentations. In any case, utilize figure elements like color, line, and pattern for outcome, not for flash.
Additional information
Figures should be labeled with a number preceding the tabular array title; tables and figures are numbered independently of one another. As well be certain to include any additional contextual information your viewer needs to understand the figure. For graphs, this may include labels, a legend explaining symbols, and vertical or horizontal tick marks. For maps, yous'll demand to include a scale and due north pointer. If you lot're unsure about contextual data, bank check out several types of figures that are commonly used in your bailiwick.
Quick reference for figures
Figures should be:
- Centered on the folio.
- Labeled (under the figure) with the figure number and appropriate descriptive title ("Figure" can be spelled out ["Figure 1."] or abbreviated ["Fig. ane."] equally long equally you are consequent).
- Numbered in the order they appear in the text.
- Referenced in the social club they appear in the text (i.e. Effigy 1 is referenced in the text before Effigy 2 and so forth).
- Set apart from the text; text should not flow around figures.
Graphs
Every graph is a effigy only not every effigy is a graph. Graphs are a particular prepare of figures that display quantitative relationships between variables. Some of the most common graphs include bar charts, frequency histograms, pie charts, scatter plots, and line graphs, each of which displays trends or relationships within and amongst datasets in a different way. You lot'll demand to carefully choose the best graph for your information and the relationship that you want to testify. More details about some common graph types are provided below. Some good advice regarding the structure of graphs is to go along it simple. Remember that the main objective of your graph is advice. If your viewer is unable to visually decode your graph, then you have failed to communicate the information contained within it.
Pie charts
Pie charts are used to evidence relative proportions, specifically the human relationship of a number of parts to the whole. Use pie charts only when the parts of the pie are mutually exclusive categories and the sum of parts adds up to a meaningful whole (100% of something). Pie charts are good at showing "big moving picture" relationships (i.eastward. some categories make up "a lot" or "a niggling" of the whole thing). Still, if y'all want your reader to discern fine distinctions inside your information, the pie chart is not for you. Humans are not very skilful at making comparisons based on angles. We are much better at comparing length, and then try a bar chart equally an alternative way to show relative proportions. Additionally, pie charts with lots of little slices or slices of very different sizes are difficult to read, so limit yours to 5-7 categories.
Examples of bad pie charts:
Figure 1. Elements in Martian soil
The chart shows the relative proportion of fifteen elements in Martian soil, listed in order from "well-nigh" to "to the lowest degree": oxygen, silicon, fe, magnesium, calcium, sulfur, aluminum, sodium, potassium, chlorine, helium, nitrogen, phosphorus, glucinium, and other. Oxygen makes up well-nigh ⅓ of the limerick, while silicon and iron together make up virtually ¼. The remaining slices make up smaller proportions, but the percentages aren't listed in the key and are difficult to judge. It is as well difficult to distinguish 15 colors when comparing the pie chart to the color coded key.
Figure 2. Leisure activities of Venusian teenagers
The chart shows the relative proportion of five leisure activities of Venusian teenagers (tanning, trips to Mars, reading, messing with satellites, and stealing World cable). Although each of the 5 slices are about the aforementioned size (roughly 20% of the full), the percentage of Venusian teenagers engaging in each activity varies widely (tanning: fourscore%, trips to Mars: 40%, reading: 12%, messing with satellites: 30%, stealing Earth cable: 77%). Therefore, at that place is a mismatch between the labels and the bodily proportion represented by each activity (in other words, if reading represents 12% of the total, its slice should take upwards 12% of the pie nautical chart area), which makes the representation inaccurate. In addition, the labels for the five slices add together upward to 239% (rather than 100%), which makes it impossible to accurately correspond this dataset using a pie nautical chart.
Bar graphs
Bar graphs are likewise used to brandish proportions. In detail, they are useful for showing the relationship between independent and dependent variables, where the independent variables are detached (often nominal) categories. Some examples are occupation, gender, and species. Bar graphs can exist vertical or horizontal. In a vertical bar graph the contained variable is shown on the x axis (left to right) and the dependent variable on the y axis (up and downward). In a horizontal one, the dependent variable will exist shown on the horizontal (10) axis, the contained on the vertical (y) axis. The scale and origin of the graph should be meaningful. If the dependent (numeric) variable has a natural cypher point, information technology is commonly used as a point of origin for the bar nautical chart. Nevertheless, naught is not always the all-time choice. You should experiment with both origin and scale to best evidence the relevant trends in your data without misleading the viewer in terms of the strength or extent of those trends.
Example of a bar graph:
Figure 3. Genders of spaceship crew members in popular boob tube series
The graph shows the number of male person and female spaceship crew members for v dissimilar popular television series: Star Expedition (1965), Battlestar (1978), Star Expedition: TNG (1987), Stargate SG-1 (1997), and Firefly (2002). Because the boob tube series are arranged chronologically on the x-axis, the graph can also be used to await for trends in these numbers over time.
Although the number of crew members for each show is like (ranging from 9 to 11), the proportion of female and male crew members varies. Star Trek has half equally many female crew members every bit male crew members (3 and 6, respectively), Battlestar has fewer than one-fourth as many female crew members as male crew members (2 and 9, respectively), Star Trek: TNG has iv female crew members and 6 male crew members, Stargate SG-i has less than half as many female crew members as male crew members (3 and 7, respectively), and Firefly has four female and five male coiffure members.
Frequency histograms/distributions
Frequency histograms are a special type of bar graph that testify the relationship between independent and dependent variables, where the independent variable is continuous, rather than discrete. This means that each bar represents a range of values, rather than a unmarried observation. The dependent variables in a histogram are e'er numeric, only may be absolute (counts) or relative (percentages). Frequency histograms are good for describing populations—examples include the distribution of test scores for students in a class or the historic period distribution of the people living in Chapel Loma. You lot tin can experiment with bar ranges (also known equally "bins") to reach the best level of item, simply each range or bin should exist of uniform width and conspicuously labeled.
XY scatter plots
Besprinkle plots are some other fashion to illustrate the relationship betwixt two variables. In this case, data are displayed as points in an ten,y coordinate system, where each point represents i observation along 2 axes of variation. Often, scatter plots are used to illustrate correlation between two variables—as ane variable increases, the other increases (positive correlation) or decreases (negative correlation). Withal, correlation does non necessarily imply that changes in one variable crusade changes in the other. For instance, a third, unplotted variable may be causing both. In other words, scatter plots tin be used to graph one independent and ane dependent variable, or they tin can be used to plot two contained variables. In cases where one variable is dependent on another (for example, height depends partly on historic period), plot the independent variable on the horizontal (x) centrality, and the dependent variable on the vertical (y) axis. In improver to correlation (a linear human relationship), scatter plots can exist used to plot non-linear relationships between variables.
Example of a scatter plot:
Effigy 4. The upshot of weather on UFO sightings
The scatter plot shows the human relationship between temperature (ten-axis, contained variable) and the number of UFO sightings (y-axis, dependent variable) for 53 split up data points. The temperature ranges from most 0°F and 120°F, and the number of UFO sightings ranges from i to 10. The plot shows a low number of UFO sightings (ranging from i to four) at temperatures beneath 80°F and a much wider range of the number of sightings (from 1 to 10) at temperatures above 80°F. It appears that the number of sightings tends to increase every bit temperature increases, though there are many cases where only a few sightings occur at high temperatures.
XY line graphs
Line graphs are similar to scatter plots in that they display data along 2 axes of variation. Line graphs, however, plot a serial of related values that depict a change in one variable as a office of another, for example, earth population (dependent) over time (independent). Private data points are joined by a line, cartoon the viewer'southward attention to local change betwixt side by side points, equally well as to larger trends in the data. Line graphs are similar to bar graphs, but are better at showing the rate of change betwixt two points. Line graphs can also be used to compare multiple dependent variables by plotting multiple lines on the same graph.
Example of an XY line graph:
Figure five. Age of the actor of each Doctor Who regeneration (i-11)
The line graph shows the age (in years) of the thespian of each Doctor Who regeneration for the first through the eleventh regeneration. The ages range from a maximum of about 55 in the get-go regeneration to a minimum of most 25 in the eleventh regeneration. In that location is a downward trend in the age of the actors over the course of the eleven regenerations.
General tips for graphs
Strive for simplicity. Your data will be circuitous. Don't exist tempted to convey the complication of your information in graphical course. Your job (and the job of your graph) is to communicate the virtually important thing about the information. Think of graphs similar you think of paragraphs—if you accept several important things to say about your information, make several graphs, each of which highlights one of import point you want to make.
Strive for clarity. Make sure that your data are portrayed in a manner that is visually articulate. Make certain that yous take explained the elements of the graph clearly. Consider your audience. Will your reader exist familiar with the type of figure you are using (such as a boxplot)? If not, or if you lot're not sure, you may demand to explain boxplot conventions in the text. Avoid "chartjunk." Superfluous elements just make graphs visually confusing. Your reader does non want to spend fifteen minutes figuring out the point of your graph.
Strive for accurateness. Carefully check your graph for errors. Fifty-fifty a simple graphical mistake tin can alter the meaning and interpretation of the data. Use graphs responsibly. Don't manipulate the data so that it looks like information technology's saying something it'due south non—savvy viewers will see through this ruse, and you will come off as incompetent at best and dishonest at worst.
How should tables and figures collaborate with text?
Placement of figures and tables within the text is discipline-specific. In manuscripts (such every bit lab reports and drafts) information technology is conventional to put tables and figures on separate pages from the text, as near as possible to the place where you beginning refer to it. You lot can besides put all the figures and tables at the finish of the paper to avert breaking up the text. Figures and tables may also be embedded in the text, as long equally the text itself isn't cleaved upwards into small-scale chunks. Complex raw data is conventionally presented in an appendix. Be sure to check on conventions for the placement of figures and tables in your discipline.
You can utilize text to guide the reader in interpreting the information included in a figure, tabular array, or graph—tell the reader what the effigy or table conveys and why information technology was important to include it.
When referring to tables and graphs from inside the text, you can apply:
- Clauses start with "as": "As shown in Tabular array one, …"
- Passive voice: "Results are shown in Table i."
- Active vocalization (if appropriate for your discipline): "Table 1 shows that …"
- Parentheses: "Each sample tested positive for iii nutrients (Table 1)."
Works consulted
We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive listing of resource on the handout's topic, and we encourage you to do your own inquiry to detect additional publications. Please practise not use this list as a model for the format of your ain reference list, as it may not friction match the commendation style you lot are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial. Nosotros revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.
American Psychological Association. 2010. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. 6th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Bates Higher. 2012. "Almost everything you wanted to know about making tables and figures." How to Write a Paper in Scientific Journal Style and Format, January 11, 2012. http://abacus.bates.edu/~ganderso/biology/resources/writing/HTWtablefigs.html.
Cleveland, William S. 1994. The Elements of Graphing Information, 2nd ed. Meridian, NJ: Hobart Press..
Council of Science Editors. 2014. Scientific Manner and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, 8th ed. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press.
University of Chicago Press. 2017. The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Printing.
This work is licensed under a Creative Eatables Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License.
Y'all may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of Due north Carolina at Chapel Hill
Make a Souvenir
Source: https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/figures-and-charts/
0 Response to "Reading Counts Points or Number of Books"
Post a Comment