Chapter: 12 Graphics. 2 Planning the Graphics By graphics we mean any form of illustrations: charts,...

Chapter: 12

Graphics

2

Planning the Graphics

• By graphics we mean any form of illustrations: charts, pictures, diagrams, maps.

• You should plan the graphics for a report soon after you organize your findings. Your planning of the graphics should be based on the need to communicate.

• Graphics serve one purpose --- to communicate --- and you should use them primarily for that purpose.

• Graphics can clarify complex or difficult information, emphasize facts, add coherence, summarize data, and provide interest.

• You construct graphics to help the reader understand the report quicker, easier, and more completely.

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Placing the Graphics in the Report

• For the best communication effect, you should place each graphic near the place where it is covered in writing.

• Exactly where on the page you should place it, however, should be determined by its size.

• If the size is small, you should place it within the text that covers it. • If it is full page, you should place it on the page following the first

reference to the information it covers.• Some writers like to place all graphics at the end of the report,

usually in the appendix. • This arrangement may save time in preparing the report, but it does

not help the readers. • They have to flip through pages every time they want to see a

graphic. • Common sense requires that you place graphics in such a way as to

help readers understand the report.

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• Sometimes you may need to include graphics that do not fit a specific part of the report.

• For example, you may have a graphic that is necessary for completeness but is not discussed in the report. Or you may have summary charts or tables that apply to the entire report but to no specific place in it. When such graphics are appropriate, you should place them in the appendix. And you should refer to the appendix somewhere in the report.

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• Graphics communicate most effectively when the readers see them at the right place in the report. Thus, you should refer the readers to them at the right place. That is, you should tell the readers when to look at a graphic and what to see. You can do this best through an incidental reference to the information in the graphic. Of the many wordings used for this purpose, these are the most common:

…as shown in Figure 4……indicated in Figure 4….…as a glance at Figure 4 reveals……(see Figure 4)…

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Determining the General Mechanics of Construction

• Size Determination: If a graph is simple (with only two or three quantities), a quarter page might be more than enough and a full page would be too much. But if a graphic must display complex or detailed information, a full page might be justified.

• Type: Type used in graphics throughout a report is generally consistent in both style and font. Style refers to the look of the type such as bold or italics; font refers to the look of the letters. The size you choose should look appropriate in the context you use it.

• Your top priority in choosing type style, font, and size should be readability.

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• Rules and Borders: Rules help distinguish one section or graphic from another, while borders help separate graphics from the text.

• In general, you should place borders around graphics that occupy less than a full page. You also can place borders around full-page graphics, but such borders serve little practical value.

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• Color: Research has found that color in graphics improves the comprehension, retention, and ease of extracting information.

• Clip Art: Use clip art to help your reader understand your message.

• Background: Background color, photos, and art should enhance the message of the graphic.

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• Numbering: Except for minor tabular displays, clip art, etc. you should number all the graphics in the report.

• If you have many graphics that fall into two or more categories, you may number each of the categories consecutively. For example, if your report is illustrated by six tables, five charts, and six maps, you may number these graphics Table I, Table II, ….Chart 1, Chart 2….., Map 1, Map 2, …

• Figures, a miscellaneous grouping, may include all types other than tables. Consider a report containing 3 tables, 2 maps, 3 charts, one diagram, and one photograph. You could number these graphics Table I, Table II, and Table III, and Figure 1, Figure 2, ….Figure 7.

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• Construction of Titles and Captions: The titles should describe content clearly (consider the five Ws and 1H: who, what, where, when, why and how).

• Example: Who: Dell CompanyWhat: Annual sales

Where: Texas and California branches

When: 2003-04

Why: for comparison

The title or caption might read, “Comparative Annual Sales of Texas and California Territories of the Dell Company, 2003-04.”

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• Placement of Titles and Captions: The conventional placement of titles is at the top for tables and at the bottom for charts.

• In presentations, titles of both tables and other charts and illustrations are usually placed above the graphic.

• There has been a trend toward the use of lowercase type for all illustration titles.

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• Footnotes and Acknowledgements: Parts of a graphic sometimes require special explanation or elaboration. When this happens, you should use footnotes.

• Such footnotes are concise explanations placed below the illustration and keyed to the part explained by means of a superscript (raised) number or symbol( e.g. asterisk *).

• Usually, a source acknowledgment is the bottom entry made in the graphic context. By source acknowledgment we mean a reference to the body or authority that deserves the credit for gathering the data used in the illustration. The entry consists simply of the word Source followed by a colon and the source name. Example:

• Source: US Department of Commerce.• If you or your staff collected the data, you may either omit the

source note or give the source as “Primary”, in which case the note would read like this:

Source: Primary

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Types of Graphics

• Graphics fall into two general categories:

1. Textual (words and numerals)

2. Visual (pictures).

Included in the textual group are tables, pull quotes, and a variety of flow and process charts (Gnatt, flow, etc.)

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Constructing Textual Graphics

Tables: A table is an orderly arrangement of information in rows and columns.

• Two basic types of tables are available:1. General-purpose table2. Special-purpose tableGeneral-purpose tables cover a broad area of

information. For example, a table reviewing the answers to all the questions in a survey is general-purpose table. Such tables usually belong in the appendix.

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Special-purpose tables are prepared for one special purpose: to illustrate a particular part of the report. For example, a table presenting the answer to one of the questions in a survey is a special-purpose table. Such tables belong in the report text near the discussion of their contents.

• A table contains row heads, columns and data.• Row heads are the titles of the rows of data, and

spanner heads are the titles of the columns. • The spanner heads, however, may be divided into

column heads.If data is not available inside a table, do not put ‘0’. Put

either the abbreviation n.a. (or NA or N.A) or the em dash (---).

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Table I Average Annual Returns of Unilever for Several Categories*

Short Term Long Term

Category 1-year 3-year 5-year 10-year

Aggressive Growth

34 44 55 64

Short Selling

44 52 12 35

*For years ending September 2007

Source: Financial Statement, 2007

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• Tabular information need not always be presented in formal tables. Short arrangements of data may be presented more effectively as parts of the text. Such arrangements are called leaderwork.

• Leaderwork is the presentation of tabular material in the text, without titles or rules. (Leaders are the repeated dots with intervening spaces.) Typically, a colon precedes the tabulation.

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• Example:

The August sales of the representatives in the Western Region were as follows:

Charles B. Brown…..$33,517

Thelma Capp……….$ 39,704

Bill E. Knauth……….$ 38,198

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• Bullet Lists:

Bullet lists show points set off by a bullet symbol. When you use this arrangement, make the points grammatically parallel. If the points have subparts, use sub-bullets for them.

Make the sub-bullets different by color, size, shape, or weight.

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Flowcharts and Process Charts:• The most common of these is the

organizational chart. These charts show hierarchy of positions, divisions, and departments in an organization.

• Gnatt charts are graphic presentations that show planning and scheduling activities.

• A flowchart shows the sequence of activities in a process.

• Decision tree helps one follow a path to an appropriate decision.

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Organization Chart

Managing Director

Head of HR Head of Marketing

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Flowchart

Select Topic Search with Google

Political Sources?

Revise searchstrategy

Follow link to source

yes

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Constructing Visual Graphics

• Visual types of graphics include:– Charts– Illustrations

Charts include bar, pie, and line charts and all their variations and combinations.

Illustrations includes maps, diagrams, drawings, cartoons, etc.

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• Simple Bar and Column Charts: They compare differences in quantities by differences in the lengths of the bars representing those quantities.

• Bars are arranged horizontally or vertically, each bar of equal width. Each bar or column should be identified with a caption at the left or bottom. The scales must be identified with caption and units ($, miles, etc.)

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• When you need to compare two or three different quantities in one chart, you can use a clustered (or multiple) bar chart.

• In such a chart, bars show the values of the quantities compared.

• Different colors can distinguish the bars. • Somewhere within the chart, a legend (explanation)

gives a key to the differences in the bars. • Because clustered bar charts can become clustered,

usually you should not compare more than three kinds of information on one of them.

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• Bilateral column charts are used to show plus and minus differences.

• The columns of these charts begin at a central point of reference and may go either up or down.

• Bar titles appear either within or below the bars.

• Bilateral column charts are especially good for showing percentage changes.

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• If you need to compare subdivisions of columns, you can use stacked (subdivided) column charts.

• Such a chart divides each column into its parts. It distinguishes these parts by color.

• Subdivided column charts may be difficult for readers to interpret since both beginning and ending points need to be found. Then the reader has to subtract to find the size of the column component.

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• Pictographs: It is a bar or column chart that uses bars made of pictures. The pictures are typically drawing of items being compared.

• Pie Charts: The most frequently used chart in comparing the subdivisions of wholes is the pie chart. As the name implies, pie charts show the whole of the information being studied as a pie (circle), and the parts of this whole as slices of the pie. The slices may be distinguished by labeling and color.

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• Line Charts: Line charts are useful in showing changes in information over time. For example, changes in prices, sales totals, employment, or production over a period of years can be shown well in a line chart.

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Errors in Constructing Visual Graphics

Two categories of common errors:• Errors in scale• Errors in formatError of scale include problems with uniform scale

size, scale distortion, and zero points. You need to make sure that all the dimensions from left to right (X-axis) are equal, and the dimensions from the bottom to the top (Y-axis) are equal.

Scale distortion occurs when a graphic is stretched excessively horizontally or vertically to change the meaning it conveys to the reader.

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Errors in Constructing Visual Graphics

• For accuracy, you should begin the scale at zero. • But when all the information shown in the chart has high values, it is

awkward to show the entire scale from zero to the highest value. • For example, if the quantities compared range from 1320 to 1350

and the chart shows the entire area from 0 to 1350, the line showing these quantities would be almost straight and very high on the chart.

• Your solution in this case is not to begin the scale at a high number (say 1300), for this would distort the information, but to begin at zero and show a scale break.

• Errors of format come in wide variety. Some of the more common ones include choice of wrong chart type, distracting use of grids and shading, misuse of typeface, and problems with labels.

Chapter: 12 Graphics. 2 Planning the Graphics By graphics we mean any form of illustrations: charts,...

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Transcript of Chapter: 12 Graphics. 2 Planning the Graphics By graphics we mean any form of illustrations: charts,...