Find two examples of \"badly\" designed graphs from outside sources. They can be

Question

Find two examples of "badly" designed graphs from outside sources. They can be from a magazine article, a book, a research paper, or a website. If the source is printed material, you can cut out the actual page, or photocopy it. or scan it. If it is from a website, you can print it out or do a screen capture. Perform these tasks: For each graph, list what is wrong with the graph. Choose just one of your "bad" graphs and re-do it either on graph paper or via a graphing program (e.g.. MATLAB). Fix all of the things that are wrong with the original graph. You are allowed to change the type of graph if that enhances imderstandmg of the data.

Explanation / Answer

You have not specified whether you have identified such two graphs or not. You can look for the following whether it is specified in the graph or not:

1. Whether graph clearly shows the details it is meant for.

2. Whether graph uses the proper graph/chart type to display the details (like line chart for a trend over a certain time period, bar chart to compare two or more things, histogram to demonstrate a distribution of data etc).

3. Whether graph is complete with respect to graph elements - title, axis lebels, legends, annotations etc.

4. Whether data used in graph is scaled properly. Same of axis scales.

Following sample program in MATLAB shows how to plot:

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% This code shows the use of plot and subplot function.
% subplot() function lets display multiple plot in same figure. It divides the figure into a grid of order m x n (m rows and n columns).
% Then based on a position p, a plot can be shown in a given cell of grid.
% Syntax: subplot(m,n,p) - creates grid of m x n order and put the plot in position p.

x=linspace(10,100,10); %values to be plotted along x axis
y1=linspace(10,50,10); %values to be plotted along y axis of subplot 1
y2=linspace(10,100,10); %values to be plotted along y axis of subplot 2
  
m=2; %no. of rows in grid
n=1; %no. of columns in grid
p=1:2; %vector for positions in the grid. length of this vector should be as per the order of grid.

figure;
subplot(m,n,p(1));
plot(x,y1,'b',x,y1,'b*');
xlim([10 100]);
ylabel("y1");
title("Subplot 1: x Vs y1");

subplot(m,n,p(2));
plot(x,y2,'b',x,y2,'b*');
xlim([10 100]);
xlabel("x");
ylabel("y2");
title("Subplot 2: x Vs y2");

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