Charts–”How to Lie with Statistics”

To lie about the statistics, I altered the minimum and maximum of the Y-axis to portray the data in a way that would make it appear drastically different from what a simple data table—or an appropriately scaled graph—would portray to the viewer. By increasing the maximum of the Y-axis, the graph made the results of the data appear as though the actual and legal progress towards reaching the 30% proposed goal of the Sheff 1 case (2003-2007) was not only reached—but fairly insignificant of a progress (as you can see, the lines appear as though they are essentially one). On the other hand, increasing the minimum and decreasing the maximum on the scale of the Y-axis made it appear to the viewer as though not only was there little progress made over the years—however, the actual proposed goal of 30% seems blatantly unachievable in the near future.

 

This exercise proved itself rather fascinating and showed how fairly detrimental and deceiving visuals can be in respect to portraying data. What I mean by this is that human beings are very visual and tend to look at the shape of the graph and not really read into the actual numbers. Although all of the three graphs present the same data and same numbers, they are portraying completely different results visually.

To create the graph where it appears as though virtually no change or progress was made towards reaching the 30% integration goal of schools by 2007, I changed the minimum of the Y-axis to 14 and the maximum of the Y-axis to 30. I also changed the major unit to 0.8 and the minor unit to 0.1. By increasing the minimum, It made the line appear as though very insignificant growth on the “progression department” had occurred. By decreasing the maximum to the actual goal of 30, it made the other line appear at the very top. The major and minor units changed the intervals between by increasing them—furthering the distance between the actual progress of the state and the proposed goal of the original Sheff I hearing.

In respect to the graph where it appears as though there was great progress and that the proposed goal of 30% was met, I decreased the minimum of the Y-axis to -50 and increased the maximum of the Y-axis to 2000. Additionally, I played around a bit and changed the major unit to 200 and the minor unit to 50. By making all of the alterations listed, it looks as though not only did the state meet the proposed goal—but it wasn’t far below the goal of 30% to begin with—virtually the two lines appear as though they intersect. Clearly, this is not the case, because Sheff II and a newly negotiated proposed goal came into effect shortly after the state failed to meet the original goal of Sheff I.