Mike Palij asks: "It could just be me but what exactly is misleading in the "uncorrected" figures. Wikipedia has an entry on misleading graphs that provides (a) specific types of misleading techniques and (b) Tufte's rules for measuring distortion in figures. Which violations of good practice are present in the "uncorrected" and "corrected" figures? See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misleading_graph";
It is what the Wikipedia reference you cited calls a "truncated graph" (the y-axis doesn't start at 0 or, I would argue, the minimum of the scale). Mike later asks: "Question 1: How does the uncorrected figures mislead the reader about this point? For example, how does it imply that the percentage of female CEOs in the Fortune 500 is much greater than 4%, under the assumption one can read the y-axis?" In this case, the uncorrected graph probably understates the point the article is trying to make which indicates that not all misleading graphs are used purposely to hype the author's point. Sometimes the person just doesn't know any better. I am also not sure that it would be necessary to show all of the blank space on the graph up to 100%. Since 50% would suggest parity, that would seem to be enough to make the point. Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences Professor of Psychology Box 3519 John Brown University 2000 W. University Siloam Springs, AR 72761 [email protected] (479) 524-7295 http://bit.ly/DrFroman --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=32717 or send a blank email to leave-32717-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
