Deceptive Data & Charts That Cheat

HOW TO SLEUTH THE TRUTH FROM MISLEADING GRAPHS

by Carrie Tillotson

Scroll through social media, glance at an ad, watch the news, or pay attention to politics. You’ll see them. Graphs. Charts. Data visualizations. They’re everywhere. Data visualizations, graphs, and charts are pictures representing data or numbers. On the one hand, graphs can inform, explain, and enlighten. That’s especially true when they’re well-designed. On the other hand, they can misinform or mislead you. Fortunately, you can learn to spot tricks by becoming a data decoder. The Case of the Cut-Off Axis When Stephanie Evergreen sorted through her junk mail one day, something caught her eye. It was a postcard from an energy company. “I’ll never forget it,” says Evergreen, a data visualization expert and author. “They had included this bar graph of how much money a person would save by switching…

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Muse: The Magazine Of Science, Culture, And Smart Laughs For Kids And Children (Digital) - 1 Issue, November/December 2018

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