ABSTRACT

Introduction A picture is worth a thousand words. How many times have we heard that statement in the past? The truth is, it is correct! Moreover, it does not just apply to pictures; a well-constructed table that summarizes data is also probably worth a thousand words. As an example, as discussed at the beginning of Chapter 1, imagine an analyst wants to know something about the 10,000 seniors who took the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) in the state. Rather than leafing through endless pages of a computer printout looking at all the scores, one thing the analyst can do is look at an illustration that might also summarize the data. This includes charts, tables, and graphs. In statisK tics presentations, there are a myriad of different kinds of graphs and charts available.