A manual for writers of research papers, theses, and dissertations, Ninth edition - Kate L. Turabian 2018

Choose verbal or visual representations of your data
Presenting evidence in tables and figures
Research and writing

8.1 Choose Verbal or Visual Representations of Your Data

8.2 Choose the Most Effective Graphic

8.3 Design Tables and Figures

8.3.1 Frame Each Graphic to Help Your Readers Understand It

8.3.2 Keep All Graphics as Simple as Their Content Allows

8.3.3 Follow Guidelines for Tables, Bar Charts, and Line Graphs

8.4 Communicate Data Ethically

If your data are in the form of numbers, most readers grasp them more easily if you present them graphically. But you face many choices of graphic forms, and some forms will suit your data and message better than others. In this chapter we show you how to choose the right graphic form and design it so that readers can see both what your data are and how they support your argument. (See pp. 426—28 in the bibliography for guides to creating and using graphics; see chapter 26 for details on formatting graphics.)¹

8.1 Choose Verbal or Visual Representations of Your Data

Ordinarily, present quantitative data verbally when they include only a few numbers. (See chapter 23 for presenting numbers in text.) Present them graphically when most of your evidence is quantitative or you must communicate a large set of data. But when the data are few and simple, readers can grasp them as easily in a sentence as in a table like table 8.1.

In 2013, on average, men earned $50,033 a year, women $39,157, a difference of $10,876.

Table 8.1. Male-female salaries ($), 2013

But if you present more than four or five numbers in a passage, readers will struggle to keep them straight, particularly if they must compare them, like this:

Between 1970 and 2010, the structure of families changed in two ways. In 1970, 85 percent of families had two parents, but by 1980 that number had declined to 77 percent, then to 73 percent by 1990, to 68 percent by 2000, and to 64 percent by 2010. The number of one-parent families rose, particularly families headed by a mother. In 1970, 11 percent of families were headed by a single mother. By 1980 that number rose to 18 percent, by 1990 to 22 percent, to 23 percent by 2000, and to 27 percent by 2010. There were some marginal changes among single fathers (headed 1 percent of families in 1970, 2 percent in 1980, 3 percent in 1990, and 4 percent in 2000 and 2010). Families with no adult in the home have remained stable at 3—4 percent.

Those data can be presented more effectively in graphic form, as in table 8.2.

Table 8.2. Changes in family structure, 1970—2010