Elevate the Debate

chapter threeAn Introduction to Visualizing Your Research

Jonathan Schwabish

Now that you have an idea of your overall approach and the audience (or audiences) you want to reach, you can start thinking about the different visual, text, media, and social media outlets available to disseminate your work. In this chapter, we start with improving how you visualize your data. Graphs, charts, and diagrams have long been part of the analyst's toolbox, but only more recently has interest in better ways to visualize data grown.

It may come as no surprise that many scholars, researchers, and analysts leave the visual component of their communication efforts to the last minute. Yes, many make graphs and visuals as they learn about their data and analysis, but when it comes time to present those findings in a presentation or written report, the visuals are often thrown together without carefully considering the needs of the audience or readers, such as their levels of expertise with the content or even the graph type.

In this chapter, I provide you with the fundamentals to visualize your data better and more effectively. I show you how to visually present your analysis so that your readers can spend their time focusing on your content and less time trying to decipher what they're looking at.

As you work with your data, don't leave the visualization process to the last minute. First, consider ...