Discuss how graphical representations can be used to display data in a meaningful way. Choose a specific business application and describe an example of a specific graph or chart that can be used to interpret data and why it is so useful. Instructor's Notes: This is one of the discussion forums where having an actual visual, in addition to the narrative, counts quite a bit for creating a strong response. If you do not include a visual, you will lose at least 4 points out of 20. A minimum of one visual illustration is required. If you embed the visual in your post, please make sure you also attach the file to your post! Please try to be creative. We've all seen pie charts and bar graphs, and frankly, at some point they get boring! Can you locate a really interesting chart that communicates data in interesting and/or unusual way, or is exceptionally effective at getting the message through? Please makes sure that you discuss at least three to five different types of charts in your narrative (though you have to include only one example). Ps. Please make this original for me and cite source as well. Discuss how graphical representations can be used to display data in a meaningful way. Choose a specific business application and describe an example of a specific graph or chart that can be used to interpret data and why it is so useful. Instructor's Notes: This is one of the discussion forums where having an actual visual, in addition to the narrative, counts quite a bit for creating a strong response. If you do not include a visual, you will lose at least 4 points out of 20. A minimum of one visual illustration is required. If you embed the visual in your post, please make sure you also attach the file to your post! Please try to be creative. We've all seen pie charts and bar graphs, and frankly, at some point they get boring! Can you locate a really interesting chart that communicates data in interesting and/or unusual way, or is exceptionally effective at getting the message through? Please makes sure that you discuss at least three to five different types of charts in your narrative (though you have to include only one example). Ps. Please make this original for me and cite source as well. We know that statistics is all about the data; the data is the base of any statistical analysis. Based on the data we do the analysis, present the results and then interpret it in the context of the research. To a statistician represents the results (which most of the time consists of lots of numbers) is easy but for a common man it becomes difficult. Understanding the results (most of the time) needs in depth statistical knowledge and thus we need to represent it in a better fashion using some other tools to make it widely acceptable. For that purpose we use the graphical methods of data representation. The graphs and tabular representations make the analysis easy to understand for any person without having deep understanding of the topic. For example lets talk about a real life situation. Suppose we want to show the percentage of Internet browsers used to access the Internet over the last year and what to see how it changed from the previous year. As there are quite few numbers of browsers so the table would be a little messy to represent. However we can easily represent this information using several of the appropriate graphs. These following graphs would be useful in this case. Stacked Bar Chart: A side by side stacked bar chart (like above) would indicate how the percentages are changing over the years. Here each color represents a separate browser thus identifying the change is easy. Donut chart: A donut chart like above with few more layers can also be easily used to represent the change over the years. The above are only two examples. The same work can be done using line chart or pie chart or stacked column chart or side-by-side column chart. Line Chart: A line chart can be used to plot the data changing over time. So if we have the data for multiple years we can just keep all the years in the X axis to plot how the values are changing over the year. As for example prices over the years can be represented here. Pie Chart: It is used to denote which category is contributing to what percentage of the total. The total of the pie is taken as 1 or 100%. Some business examples where it can be used is, sales in different regions, the revenue or profit from different items sell. Stacked column chart: Stacked column chart is somewhat similar to the stacked bar chart. Here multiple stacked columns are put side by side to construct the chart which can be used to identify the percentages in different groups. One example would be different items sell in different regions and how much it is contributing to the revenue. Side-by-side column chart: In side by side pie chart we put several pie charts side by side to represent the division by regions or groups as well. One example would be different items sell in different regions and how much it is contributing to the revenue. Sources: http://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/47662_ch_3.pdf http://www.highcharts.com/demo/column-stacked http://betterevaluation.org/evaluation-options/stacked_graph http://best-excel-tutorial.com/56-charts/209-multi-level-pie-chart http://www.keynotesupport.com/excel-basics/excel-chart-types.shtml http://smallbusiness.chron.com/different-kinds-excel-charts-uses-72871.html For Part 1, to get the full points: the frequency polygon and the histogram must be shown on the same graph; the frequency polygon must begin and end at zero; there must be no spaces between the histogram bars yet the bars must be distinct from each other (you could use a different color border for the histogram bar borders to make sure that they are distinct). For Part 2, to get the full points you should: construct a valid scatter plot where one coordinate of the point is the advertising spend and the second coordinate is the associated sales; include the line of the best fit (also known as the regression line); correctly identify the relationship and its direction, and differentiate between correlation and causation; offer a possible explanation that underlies the relationship. Notes Use Excel to answer the following questions. Copy and paste your Excel tables and graphs to this document and submit everything in one word file. 1. Construct a histogram and a frequency polygon for the following data. Class Interval 30-under 32 7 34-under 36 15 36-under 38 21 38-under 40 34 40-under 42 24 42-under 44 17 44-under 46 1 5 32-under 34 MBA 501: Module 7 Frequency 8 2. Are the advertising dollars spent by a company related to total sales revenue? The following data represent the advertising dollars and the sales revenues for various companies in a given industry during a recent year. Construct a scatter plot of the data from the two variables and discuss the relationship between the two variables. Advertising (in $millions) 4.2 155.7 1.6 87.3 6.3 135.6 2.7 99.0 10.4 168.2 7.1 136.9 5.5 101.4 8.3 2 Sales (in $millions) 158.2 MBA 501: Module 7 Discuss how graphical representations can be used to display data in a meaningful way. Choose a specific business application and describe an example of a specific graph or chart that can be used to interpret data and why it is so useful. Instructor's Notes: This is one of the discussion forums where having an actual visual, in addition to the narrative, counts quite a bit for creating a strong response. If you do not include a visual, you will lose at least 4 points out of 20. A minimum of one visual illustration is required. If you embed the visual in your post, please make sure you also attach the file to your post! Please try to be creative. We've all seen pie charts and bar graphs, and frankly, at some point they get boring! Can you locate a really interesting chart that communicates data in interesting and/or unusual way, or is exceptionally effective at getting the message through? Please makes sure that you discuss at least three to five different types of charts in your narrative (though you have to include only one example). Ps. Please make this original for me and cite source as well. We know that statistics is all about the data; the data is the base of any statistical analysis. Based on the data we do the analysis, present the results and then interpret it in the context of the research. To a statistician represents the results (which most of the time consists of lots of numbers) is easy but for a common man it becomes difficult. Understanding the results (most of the time) needs in depth statistical knowledge and thus we need to represent it in a better fashion using some other tools to make it widely acceptable. For that purpose we use the graphical methods of data representation. The graphs and tabular representations make the analysis easy to understand for any person without having deep understanding of the topic. For example lets talk about a real life situation. Suppose we want to show the percentage of Internet browsers used to access the Internet over the last year and what to see how it changed from the previous year. As there are quite few numbers of browsers so the table would be a little messy to represent. However we can easily represent this information using several of the appropriate graphs. These following graphs would be useful in this case. Stacked Bar Chart: A side by side stacked bar chart (like above) would indicate how the percentages are changing over the years. Here each color represents a separate browser thus identifying the change is easy. Donut chart: A donut chart like above with few more layers can also be easily used to represent the change over the years. The above are only two examples. The same work can be done using line chart or pie chart or stacked column chart or side-by-side column chart. Line Chart: A line chart can be used to plot the data changing over time. So if we have the data for multiple years we can just keep all the years in the X axis to plot how the values are changing over the year. As for example prices over the years can be represented here. Pie Chart: It is used to denote which category is contributing to what percentage of the total. The total of the pie is taken as 1 or 100%. Some business examples where it can be used is, sales in different regions, the revenue or profit from different items sell. Stacked column chart: Stacked column chart is somewhat similar to the stacked bar chart. Here multiple stacked columns are put side by side to construct the chart which can be used to identify the percentages in different groups. One example would be different items sell in different regions and how much it is contributing to the revenue. Side-by-side column chart: In side by side pie chart we put several pie charts side by side to represent the division by regions or groups as well. One example would be different items sell in different regions and how much it is contributing to the revenue. Sources: http://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/47662_ch_3.pdf http://www.highcharts.com/demo/column-stacked http://betterevaluation.org/evaluation-options/stacked_graph http://best-excel-tutorial.com/56-charts/209-multi-level-pie-chart http://www.keynotesupport.com/excel-basics/excel-chart-types.shtml http://smallbusiness.chron.com/different-kinds-excel-charts-uses-72871.html For Part 1, to get the full points: the frequency polygon and the histogram must be shown on the same graph; the frequency polygon must begin and end at zero; there must be no spaces between the histogram bars yet the bars must be distinct from each other (you could use a different color border for the histogram bar borders to make sure that they are distinct). For Part 2, to get the full points you should: construct a valid scatter plot where one coordinate of the point is the advertising spend and the second coordinate is the associated sales; include the line of the best fit (also known as the regression line); correctly identify the relationship and its direction, and differentiate between correlation and causation; offer a possible explanation that underlies the relationship. Notes Use Excel to answer the following questions. Copy and paste your Excel tables and graphs to this document and submit everything in one word file. 1. Construct a histogram and a frequency polygon for the following data. Class Interval 30-under 32 7 34-under 36 15 36-under 38 21 38-under 40 34 40-under 42 24 42-under 44 17 44-under 46 1 5 32-under 34 MBA 501: Module 7 Frequency 8 2. Are the advertising dollars spent by a company related to total sales revenue? The following data represent the advertising dollars and the sales revenues for various companies in a given industry during a recent year. Construct a scatter plot of the data from the two variables and discuss the relationship between the two variables. Advertising (in $millions) 4.2 155.7 1.6 87.3 6.3 135.6 2.7 99.0 10.4 168.2 7.1 136.9 5.5 101.4 8.3 2 Sales (in $millions) 158.2 MBA 501: Module 7