Presenting data

This chapter looks at how data and ideas can be presented using a visual approach. It looks in more detail at three approaches to the presentation of data distinguished by purpose. Firstly, the chapter looks at the inevitable charts and graphs or visualisations which have the purpose of guiding the reader to key points before explaining the thinking behind these choices. Secondly, it examines the use of data visualisations with the purpose of explaining research to a non-expert audience. Thirdly there is a discussion of the use of data visualisations to help one, the researcher, to summarise and organize thinking along the way. In taught courses, universities and colleges consider the quality of graphics such as charts, graphs and boxplots as one of the assessment criteria for the quality of research work. Students are therefore encouraged to figure out how to visualise data in order to offer meaningful analysis and interpretations of those data.