Question

Find a journal article with data presented graphically. Describe the pros and cons of how it was presented. Was it clear or not? What could have been improved?

Answer 1

Graphical representation of data is very useful these days for a quick interpretation of data. However for scientific data where the minute details are extremely critical, graphical representation may lack clarity. The choice for representing data graphically should be purely based on the type of interpretation that you need the reader to grasp. For, example, for understanding the market trend, a line graph is very useful and a dynamic chart is very helpful to read the data anywhere on the graph. However, in an article where the graphs cannot facilitate user interaction, the graph has to be very informative which is the very drawback for a static diagram, that is, any form of a line, bar, stack, pie charts etc.

As you can see in the above graph, which is a static graph of the GDP per Capita in England in the year 2013.

The pros and cons of the above data:

1. It shows a very broad analysis over a long period of time hence not accounted for the economic changes and its effect on the economy.
2. Though it gives an idea on how the GDP per capita changed over the centuries, it does not reflect on the population change which is one of the major factors affecting the GDP of any country
3. It could have been done better by adding the component of population growth along with the GDP per capita line.

Hope this helps!