ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors go through a variety of different options including bar charts, scatterplots, line plots, and histograms. In contrast to the role of graphs, which is to show each observation, the role of tables is typically to show an extract of the dataset or to convey various summary statistics, or regression results. Finally, they cover maps as a variant of graphs that are used to show a particular type of data. Graphs are a critical aspect of compelling data stories. Graphs enable a familiarity with data that is hard to get from any other method. Facets are especially useful when the people have already used color to highlight variation in some other variable. Color may also be appropriate if there is some relationship between the color and the variable. The full range of the data values is split into intervals called “bins” and the histogram counts how many observations fall into which bin.
