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Graphical Representation of Data

Graphical Representation of Data: Graphical Representation of Data,” where numbers and facts become lively pictures and colorful diagrams . Instead of staring at boring lists of numbers, we use fun charts, cool graphs, and interesting visuals to understand information better. In this exciting concept of data visualization, we’ll learn about different kinds of graphs, charts, and pictures that help us see patterns and stories hidden in data.

There is an entire branch in mathematics dedicated to dealing with collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and presenting numerical data in visual form in such a way that it becomes easy to understand and the data becomes easy to compare as well, the branch is known as Statistics .

The branch is widely spread and has a plethora of real-life applications such as Business Analytics, demography, Astro statistics, and so on . In this article, we have provided everything about the graphical representation of data, including its types, rules, advantages, etc.

Graphical-Representation-of-Data

Table of Content

What is Graphical Representation

Types of graphical representations, line graphs, histograms , stem and leaf plot , box and whisker plot .

  • Graphical Representations used in Maths

Value-Based or Time Series Graphs 

Frequency based, principles of graphical representations, advantages and disadvantages of using graphical system, general rules for graphical representation of data, frequency polygon, solved examples on graphical representation of data.

Graphics Representation is a way of representing any data in picturized form . It helps a reader to understand the large set of data very easily as it gives us various data patterns in visualized form.

There are two ways of representing data,

  • Pictorial Representation through graphs.

They say, “A picture is worth a thousand words”.  It’s always better to represent data in a graphical format. Even in Practical Evidence and Surveys, scientists have found that the restoration and understanding of any information is better when it is available in the form of visuals as Human beings process data better in visual form than any other form.

Does it increase the ability 2 times or 3 times? The answer is it increases the Power of understanding 60,000 times for a normal Human being, the fact is amusing and true at the same time.

Check: Graph and its representations

Comparison between different items is best shown with graphs, it becomes easier to compare the crux of the data about different items. Let’s look at all the different types of graphical representations briefly: 

A line graph is used to show how the value of a particular variable changes with time. We plot this graph by connecting the points at different values of the variable. It can be useful for analyzing the trends in the data and predicting further trends. 

graphical representation wikipedia

A bar graph is a type of graphical representation of the data in which bars of uniform width are drawn with equal spacing between them on one axis (x-axis usually), depicting the variable. The values of the variables are represented by the height of the bars. 

graphical representation wikipedia

This is similar to bar graphs, but it is based frequency of numerical values rather than their actual values. The data is organized into intervals and the bars represent the frequency of the values in that range. That is, it counts how many values of the data lie in a particular range. 

graphical representation wikipedia

It is a plot that displays data as points and checkmarks above a number line, showing the frequency of the point.  

graphical representation wikipedia

This is a type of plot in which each value is split into a “leaf”(in most cases, it is the last digit) and “stem”(the other remaining digits). For example: the number 42 is split into leaf (2) and stem (4).  

graphical representation wikipedia

These plots divide the data into four parts to show their summary. They are more concerned about the spread, average, and median of the data. 

graphical representation wikipedia

It is a type of graph which represents the data in form of a circular graph. The circle is divided such that each portion represents a proportion of the whole. 

graphical representation wikipedia

Graphical Representations used in Math’s

Graphs in Math are used to study the relationships between two or more variables that are changing. Statistical data can be summarized in a better way using graphs. There are basically two lines of thoughts of making graphs in maths: 

  • Value-Based or Time Series Graphs

These graphs allow us to study the change of a variable with respect to another variable within a given interval of time. The variables can be anything. Time Series graphs study the change of variable with time. They study the trends, periodic behavior, and patterns in the series. We are more concerned with the values of the variables here rather than the frequency of those values. 

Example: Line Graph

These kinds of graphs are more concerned with the distribution of data. How many values lie between a particular range of the variables, and which range has the maximum frequency of the values. They are used to judge a spread and average and sometimes median of a variable under study.

Also read: Types of Statistical Data
  • All types of graphical representations follow algebraic principles.
  • When plotting a graph, there’s an origin and two axes.
  • The x-axis is horizontal, and the y-axis is vertical.
  • The axes divide the plane into four quadrants.
  • The origin is where the axes intersect.
  • Positive x-values are to the right of the origin; negative x-values are to the left.
  • Positive y-values are above the x-axis; negative y-values are below.

graphical-representation

  • It gives us a summary of the data which is easier to look at and analyze.
  • It saves time.
  • We can compare and study more than one variable at a time.

Disadvantages

  • It usually takes only one aspect of the data and ignores the other. For example, A bar graph does not represent the mean, median, and other statistics of the data. 
  • Interpretation of graphs can vary based on individual perspectives, leading to subjective conclusions.
  • Poorly constructed or misleading visuals can distort data interpretation and lead to incorrect conclusions.
Check : Diagrammatic and Graphic Presentation of Data

We should keep in mind some things while plotting and designing these graphs. The goal should be a better and clear picture of the data. Following things should be kept in mind while plotting the above graphs: 

  • Whenever possible, the data source must be mentioned for the viewer.
  • Always choose the proper colors and font sizes. They should be chosen to keep in mind that the graphs should look neat.
  • The measurement Unit should be mentioned in the top right corner of the graph.
  • The proper scale should be chosen while making the graph, it should be chosen such that the graph looks accurate.
  • Last but not the least, a suitable title should be chosen.

A frequency polygon is a graph that is constructed by joining the midpoint of the intervals. The height of the interval or the bin represents the frequency of the values that lie in that interval. 

frequency-polygon

Question 1: What are different types of frequency-based plots? 

Types of frequency-based plots:  Histogram Frequency Polygon Box Plots

Question 2: A company with an advertising budget of Rs 10,00,00,000 has planned the following expenditure in the different advertising channels such as TV Advertisement, Radio, Facebook, Instagram, and Printed media. The table represents the money spent on different channels. 

Draw a bar graph for the following data. 

  • Put each of the channels on the x-axis
  • The height of the bars is decided by the value of each channel.

graphical representation wikipedia

Question 3: Draw a line plot for the following data 

  • Put each of the x-axis row value on the x-axis
  • joint the value corresponding to the each value of the x-axis.

graphical representation wikipedia

Question 4: Make a frequency plot of the following data: 

  • Draw the class intervals on the x-axis and frequencies on the y-axis.
  • Calculate the midpoint of each class interval.
Class Interval Mid Point Frequency
0-3 1.5 3
3-6 4.5 4
6-9 7.5 2
9-12 10.5 6

Now join the mid points of the intervals and their corresponding frequencies on the graph. 

graphical representation wikipedia

This graph shows both the histogram and frequency polygon for the given distribution.

Related Article:

Graphical Representation of Data| Practical Work in Geography Class 12 What are the different ways of Data Representation What are the different ways of Data Representation? Charts and Graphs for Data Visualization

Conclusion of Graphical Representation

Graphical representation is a powerful tool for understanding data, but it’s essential to be aware of its limitations. While graphs and charts can make information easier to grasp, they can also be subjective, complex, and potentially misleading . By using graphical representations wisely and critically, we can extract valuable insights from data, empowering us to make informed decisions with confidence.

Graphical Representation of Data – FAQs

What are the advantages of using graphs to represent data.

Graphs offer visualization, clarity, and easy comparison of data, aiding in outlier identification and predictive analysis.

What are the common types of graphs used for data representation?

Common graph types include bar, line, pie, histogram, and scatter plots , each suited for different data representations and analysis purposes.

How do you choose the most appropriate type of graph for your data?

Select a graph type based on data type, analysis objective, and audience familiarity to effectively convey information and insights.

How do you create effective labels and titles for graphs?

Use descriptive titles, clear axis labels with units, and legends to ensure the graph communicates information clearly and concisely.

How do you interpret graphs to extract meaningful insights from data?

Interpret graphs by examining trends, identifying outliers, comparing data across categories, and considering the broader context to draw meaningful insights and conclusions.

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graphical representation wikipedia

A People Map of the US

"A People Map of the US, where city names are replaced by their most Wikipedia’ed resident: people born in, lived in, or connected to a place."

  • By : Matt Daniels and Russell Goldenberg at The Pudding
  • Code : available on github .
  • Data : Wikipedia

graphical representation wikipedia

"The tool renders Wikipedia content in a 3-dimensional, web-based cartographic environment. The map acts as a medium that enables the discovery and exploration of articles in a manner that explicitly associates geography and information."

  • By : A. Noulas (NYU), D. Saez (WMF)
  • Code : none

graphical representation wikipedia

Life After Death on Wikipedia

"While not perfect, Wikipedia traffic serves as a solid proxy for the ebb and flow of a celebrity’s cultural relevance."

  • By : Russell Goldenberg at The Pudding

graphical representation wikipedia

NYC Wikipedia Articles

A map of Wikipedia articles about New York City.

  • By : Katie Hempenius

graphical representation wikipedia

Encartopedia

"Encartopedia helps locate yourself, or to be more precise, locate the subject matter of your curiosity within the universe of Wikipedia articles."

  • By : sepans at FastFoard Labs
  • Code : background blog post .

graphical representation wikipedia

Wikipedia graph mining for collective memories

"Wikipedia can tell us more than is written on its pages. ... In the paper we proposed a new method for patterns detection in large-scale dynamic graphs. We applied the method to the Wikipedia datasets. We have managed to detect dynamical patterns in terms of events and collective memories in Wikipedia using the combination of the hyperlinks graph and the visitor activity on the website."

  • By : Volodymyr Miz , Kirell Benzi , Benjamin Ricaud , and Pierre Vandergheynst
  • Code : WikiBrain on github and pre-processing code on Github (note -- code is pending publication)

graphical representation wikipedia

"An exhaustive knowledge of the evolutionary relationships linking all organisms (the whole biodiversity) would produce a tree-like structure, referred to as the Tree of Life (ToL)."

  • By : Damien M. de Vienne
  • Code : on github , described in PLoS Biology
  • Data : NCBI and OTOL data, and Wikipedia

graphical representation wikipedia

Geolinguistic Contrasts in Wikipedia

"In this project, I intended to explore knowledge diversity across the different language versions of one and the same article on Wikipedia."

  • By : Lionel Michel
  • Code : concept

graphical representation wikipedia

Van Gogh in images on Wikipedia

"The visualization explores how different languages present Van Gogh's work and life by images."

  • By : Christian Laesser
  • Data : Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons

graphical representation wikipedia

The Universe of Miles Davis

"Miles Davis’ legacy, represented by every Wikipedia page that mentions him."

  • By : Matt Daniels

graphical representation wikipedia

"Chronas is a history project linking Wikipedia and Wikidata with a chronological and cartographical view."

  • By : Dietmar Aumann
  • Data : Wikipedia and Wikidata

graphical representation wikipedia

Seealsology

Explore the relationships among Wikipedia articles with a graph of See Also links.

  • By : Density Design & Médialab Sciences Po
  • Code : here
  • Data : Wikipedia API

graphical representation wikipedia

Music Genre Popularity Over the Years

"Wikipedia is a gold mine of lists, lists of lists and even lists of lists of lists. One of these lists of lists happens to be Billboard’s Hot 100 songs which allows us to browse Wikipedia’s data pretty easily."

  • By : Brian Brightside
  • Data : Web scraping

graphical representation wikipedia

Map of Contemporaries

"The history of the world in famous people’s lifespans."

  • By : Yura Bogdanov
  • Code : on github .
  • Data : Wikipedia dumps

graphical representation wikipedia

Contropedia

"Enter the titles of Wikipedia articles to view a map of the locations of each edit."

  • By : Theo Patt
  • Code : available in various packages .

graphical representation wikipedia

Wikipedia Contributor Locations

graphical representation wikipedia

"Omnipedia highlights the similarities and differences that exist among the language editions, making salient information that is unique to each language as well as that which is shared more widely."

  • By : Patti Bao , Brent Hecht , Darren Gergle

graphical representation wikipedia

A simple and familiar dashboard of edit rates to various wikis, including Wikipedia and Wikidata.

  • By : Ed Summers
  • Data : Wikipedia Recent Changes IRC feed

graphical representation wikipedia

Wikipedia edit history stratigraphy

"Each graphic represents the history of a single article. Time moves from left to right. The varying heights of the coloured section of represent how many lines an article had at each point in time. Articles typically start short and become longer over the years."

  • By : Chris McDowall
  • Data : Wikipedia XML Export

graphical representation wikipedia

  • By : Clusterpoint
  • Data : Wikipedia Dumps

graphical representation wikipedia

Histography

"Histography is interactive timeline that spans across 14 billion years of history, from the Big Bang to 2015. The site draws historical events from Wikipedia and self-updates daily with new recorded events."

  • By : Matan Stauber

graphical representation wikipedia

Historic London as Seen from Wikipedia

"While Wikipedia is a most modern creation, its content reflects a historical accumulation of facts and attention. This map of London shows the density of articles in Wikipedia associated with locations in London."

  • By : Elijah Meeks

graphical representation wikipedia

Wikipedia edit wars: The most controversial topics

"Taha Yasseri of the Oxford Internet Institute and colleagues looked at Wikipedia’s different language editions from their inception (January 2001 for English) to March 2010 and ranked the most contested articles, based on the number of reverts and the number of edits the contributors have made (dubbed their “maturity score”)."

  • By : Roxana Willis and Lloyd Parker

graphical representation wikipedia

What is Wikipedia about?

"This visualisation shows the distribution of the 10,568,679 items on Wikipedia, sorted by type."

  • By : Paul-Antoine Chevalier, Arnaud Picandet

graphical representation wikipedia

Wikiflows - One Year on Wikipedia

"Which were the most visited pages during 2013? Which were the most edited? What’s the overall picture of one year of history looked through Wikipedia?"

  • By : Valerio Pellegrini , Michele Mauri

graphical representation wikipedia

History Flow

"The colorful history flow diagrams take a lengthy edit history and turn it into a picture."

  • By : Martin Wattenberg , Fernanda Viégas , Kushal Dave , Jonathan Feinberg

graphical representation wikipedia

Wikidata Spiral

"Originally created as a means to explore Wikidata's subclass hierarchy, Wikidata Spiral proved to be more useful in visualizing art. "

  • By : Drini Cami
  • Code : on github
  • Data : Wikidata Query API

graphical representation wikipedia

"creates an on-demand color-markup of the original authors of the text of any article on the (english) wikipedia."

  • By : Felix Stadthaus

graphical representation wikipedia

"This is a visualization prototype for large datasets of spacio-temporal data from Wikidata. Events for a selected time-interval are shown as aggregate points in a map like fashion."

  • By : Georg Wild
  • Data : processed from Wikidata

graphical representation wikipedia

Infobaleen Wikipedia Map

"Each box is a cluster of related Wikipedia pages ... like the continent of a world map."

  • By : Andrea Lancichinetti & Martin Rosvall
  • Code : InfoMap + proprietary
  • Data : Raw Wikipedia data

graphical representation wikipedia

Gender in New York Times Editorial Obituaries 1987 - 2007

"Wikipedia is an influential mirror on society, a means through which we understand our world. Wikipedia also has gaps that we can all work to fill. How are women faring?"

  • By : Nathan Matias and Sophie Diehl

graphical representation wikipedia

Global Language Network

"Here we use the structure of the networks connecting multilingual speakers and translated texts, as expressed in book translations, multiple language editions of Wikipedia, and Twitter, to provide a concept of language importance that goes beyond simple economic or demographic measures."

  • By : MIT Media Lab Macro Connections group + more

graphical representation wikipedia

Explore Wikipedia in 3D space by drifting through a galaxy of articles. Each dot is a Wikipedia article, and their connections form constellations.

  • By : Owen Cornec

graphical representation wikipedia

"My hope is that Wikipedia stays around for a while so that we can look at 50 years of a topic so can really see from childhood on."

  • By : Florian Kräutli
  • Code : available on Github

graphical representation wikipedia

Green Honey

"Language represents our view of the world, and knowing its limits helps us understand how our perception works."

  • By : Muyueh Lee
  • Data : Raw data

graphical representation wikipedia

href + U.S. cities

"Is there a correlation between the population of a place and the number of hyperlinks on a Wikipedia page?"

  • By : Max Einstein
  • Data : Raw pages

graphical representation wikipedia

Local Wikipedia Map

"The motivation of this page is to get a little more oversight of the facts and connections which are part of the Wikipedia. To get the birds eye view of Wikipedia we have to focus a part of of the whole we want to focus. This focus should describes a field of articles that interrelate."

  • By : Rasmus Krempel
  • Data : DBpedia

graphical representation wikipedia

Wikipedia globe

Using geocordinate data from Wikipedia articles, this interactive 3d globe illustrates the concentration of coverage in nine language editions of Wikipedia.

  • By : Denny Vrandečić
  • Code : available on github
  • Data : Wikidata , DBpedia

graphical representation wikipedia

Paris Review Interviews and Wikipedia

"...I wanted to get a picture not only of what Wikipedia articles pointed at the Paris Review, but also Paris Review interviews which were not referenced in Wikipedia. So I wrote a little crawler that collected all the Paris Review interviews, and then figured out which ones were pointed at by English Wikipedia."

  • Data : DBpedia - more info

graphical representation wikipedia

WikiChanges

Using Wikipedia's API, WikiChanges charts and compares revision activity of articles over time, offering insights into the editing patterns of contributors and the attentions of the masses.

  • By : Sérgio Nunes
  • Code : WikiSym Paper

graphical representation wikipedia

Wikimedia Community Visualization

Community interaction on Wikipedia, based on user communication on on talk pages. The graph is built with Gephi, showing 10,0000 connections between users.

  • By : Haitham Shammaa
  • Data : Wikimedia dumps

graphical representation wikipedia

Co-editing patterns on Wikipedia

"These links indicate individuals who have co-edited many pages together on Wikipedia. We use a custom weighting technique, and filter down to the core editors (in every language except Egyptian Arabic and Swahili where we use everyone). The fact that this core is so well connected indicates the coherence of the Wikipedia community."

  • By : Mark Graham , Ahmed Medhat Mohammed, Bernie Hogan and Richard Farmbrough, Oxford Internet Institute

graphical representation wikipedia

Information Imbalance: Africa on Wikipedia

"At the global scale (in an article that we currently have under review), we found that the number of Wikipedia articles within (or describing) a country can be explained to a large degree by just three factors: (1) the size of its population, (2) the number of its fixed broadband internet connections, and (3) the number of edits committed to Wikipedia by its population."

  • By : Ralph Straumann , Mark Graham , Bernie Hogan , Ahmed Medhat
  • Data : Wikipedia dumps , Wikilocation , WikiProjekt Georeferenzierung , Traffic stats

graphical representation wikipedia

Art History on Wikipedia

"I am a highly visual person. When I have to learn something new, I usually first try to make a sketch of the structure of the knowledge that I want (or have to ;-)) to study. This usually results in diagrams outlining the material, giving it some structured form that makes it easier for me to grasp. "

  • By : Doron Goldfarb, Dieter Merk, Max Arends, Josef Froschauer

graphical representation wikipedia

Emergent Mosaic of Wikipedian Activity

"In this case the nodes in the network are wikipedia articles and the edges are the links between articles. We then ... used an algorithm to lay out all 650,000 nodes (wikipedia articles) that had at least one link in such a way that similar articles are near one another. These are the yellow dots, which when viewed at low res give a yellow tint to the whole picture."

  • By : Bruce Herr , Todd Holloway , and Katy Börner

graphical representation wikipedia

Flow Circle

"First, this study introduces the Flow Circle, which is a new exploratory data analysis tool devised to solve such problems of History Flow. Second, this tool is used to actually visualize the Wiki revision history regarding gun politics in order to understand and analyze the flow of the revision history and the relationship and conflict structures between the authors based on the results of the MDS analysis."

  • By : Jaeho Lee, Dongjin Kim, Jaejune Park, Kyungwon Lee

graphical representation wikipedia

Wikipedia Worldview

"A while ago, Wikipedia introduced georeferences . Georeferences are a way to annotate geographic landmarks, borders, [and] cities within Wikipedia articles ... Wikipedia Worldview is an app to project Wikipedia georeferences onto a 2D plane, intended to analyze the language-based distribution."

  • By : Simon Schulz
  • Data : WikiLocation

graphical representation wikipedia

ClusterBall

"The clustering component of this visualization is vital. The mere presence of information isn't all that interesting; there is no context or relevance to be gleaned. However, the structure of information is revealing about where fields intersect and diverge, and ultimately about how humans organize information."

  • By : Chris Harrison

graphical representation wikipedia

"We analyzed and visualized Article for Deletion (AfD) discussions in the English Wikipedia. The visualization above represents the 100 longest discussions that resulted in the deletion of the respective article. "

  • By : Dario Taraborelli , Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia, and Moritz Stefaner

graphical representation wikipedia

A Map of the Geographic Structure of Wikipedia Topics

"Since geography is never far from history, a lot of maps show the colonial past of many countries. As ethnic groups don’t always fall inside political borders, several maps reveal the presence of multiple ethnic or cultural groups within a country or of groups stretching across borders."

  • By : Olivier H. Beauchesne

graphical representation wikipedia

Map of Wiki Loves Monuments

"Elle permet d'explorer les monuments historiques du monde entier."

  • Data : Wikimedia Commons monuments database

graphical representation wikipedia

"Wikistream is a Node.js webapp for helping visualize current editing activity in Wikipedia. It uses Node.js, socket.io and Redis to sit in the wikimedia IRC chat rooms (where updates are published), and makes them available on the Web in realtime."

  • By : Ed Summers , Sean Hannan , Delphine Ménard
  • Data : Wikimedia recent changes feed

graphical representation wikipedia

Wikipedia Gender

"Using the gender api that I discovered in this project, I wanted to see the relations between the proportion female/male editing and article and its content."

  • By : Santiago Ortiz

graphical representation wikipedia

Wikistalker

"Wikistalker, inspired by ‘Web Stalker‘, is a way of understanding a concept by only seeing the visualization of the meta-structure of its Wikipedia article."

  • By : sepans , raschin
  • Data : Wikipedia miner

This is a collection of our favorite visualizations, infographics, and other projects built on open data from Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, curated by Stephen LaPorte and Mahmoud Hashemi . Source code and more details about this page are available on Github .

If you know other cool Wikipedia-based projects, please submit a link .

Not all of the projects have their source code or data posted online. If you have more information about any of these porjects, please get in touch . We'd love to hear more.

Check out more Wikipedia data , too.

RSS feed

Further reading

  • Erik Zachte's Wikipedia Visualizations .
  • A set of Wikipedia links .
  • Visualize The Wiki on c2.

graphical representation wikipedia

Member-only story

A Short History of Data Visualisation

A brief walk through some of the main innovations and innovators in turning numbers into pretty pictures.

Richard Farnworth

Richard Farnworth

Towards Data Science

With modern technology, visualising data has never been easier. A few clicks of the mouse, can more or less instantly turn a huge table of raw numbers into a visually appealing and easy to interpret diagram. Graphing data provides a high-speed shortcut to creating understanding and getting your point across.

Many of the visualisation techniques of today were invented during the industrial revolution, with the field making large strides in the mid-19th century. What may seem simple and obvious today, such as a bar chart or line graph, would have been strange and unfamiliar to someone 200 years ago. In this article we take a look at some of the major innovators in the graphical representation of data and some of their famous works.

Arguably the first data visualisations were in the field of Cartography. Originally used for the purposes of navigation, land ownership and general human curiosity, maps have been around in some form or another for at least ten thousand years. In ancient times, information about the world, collated from eyewitness accounts (and a fair amount of guesswork) would be engraved into stone or…

Richard Farnworth

Written by Richard Farnworth

Data scientist, computer programmer and all-round geek with 10 years of using data in finance, retail and legal industries. Based in Adelaide, Australia.

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Data Visualization: Definition, Benefits, and Examples

Data visualization helps data professionals tell a story with data. Here’s a definitive guide to data visualization.

[Featured Image]:  Data visualization analysts presenting and information with the team.

Data visualization is a powerful way for people, especially data professionals, to display data so that it can be interpreted easily. It helps tell a story with data, by turning spreadsheets of numbers into stunning graphs and charts.

In this article, you’ll learn all about data visualization, including its definition, benefits, examples, types, and tools. If you decide you want to learn the skills to incorporate it into your job, we'll point you toward online courses you can do from anywhere.

What is data visualization?

Data visualization is the representation of information and data using charts, graphs, maps, and other visual tools. These visualizations allow us to easily understand any patterns, trends, or outliers in a data set.

Data visualization also presents data to the general public or specific audiences without technical knowledge in an accessible manner. For example, the health agency in a government might provide a map of vaccinated regions.

The purpose of data visualization is to help drive informed decision-making and to add colorful meaning to an otherwise bland database.

Benefits of data visualization

Data visualization can be used in many contexts in nearly every field, like public policy, finance, marketing, retail, education, sports, history, and more. Here are the benefits of data visualization:

Storytelling: People are drawn to colors and patterns in clothing, arts and culture, architecture, and more. Data is no different—colors and patterns allow us to visualize the story within the data.

Accessibility: Information is shared in an accessible, easy-to-understand manner for a variety of audiences.

Visualize relationships: It’s easier to spot the relationships and patterns within a data set when the information is presented in a graph or chart.

Exploration: More accessible data means more opportunities to explore, collaborate, and inform actionable decisions.

Data visualization and big data

Companies collect “ big data ” and synthesize it into information. Data visualization helps portray significant insights—like a heat map to illustrate regions where individuals search for mental health assistance. To synthesize all that data, visualization software can be used in conjunction with data collecting software.

Tools for visualizing data

There are plenty of data visualization tools out there to suit your needs. Before committing to one, consider researching whether you need an open-source site or could simply create a graph using Excel or Google Charts. The following are common data visualization tools that could suit your needs. 

Google Charts

ChartBlocks

FusionCharts

Get started with a free tool

No matter the field, using visual representations to illustrate data can be immensely powerful. Tableau has a free public tool that anyone can use to create stunning visualizations for a school project, non-profit, or small business. 

Types of data visualization

Visualizing data can be as simple as a bar graph or scatter plot but becomes powerful when analyzing, for example, the median age of the United States Congress vis-a-vis the median age of Americans . Here are some common types of data visualizations:

Table: A table is data displayed in rows and columns, which can be easily created in a Word document or Excel spreadsheet.

Chart or graph: Information is presented in tabular form with data displayed along an x and y axis, usually with bars, points, or lines, to represent data in comparison. An infographic is a special type of chart that combines visuals and words to illustrate the data.

Gantt chart: A Gantt chart is a bar chart that portrays a timeline and tasks specifically used in project management.

Pie chart: A pie chart divides data into percentages featured in “slices” of a pie, all adding up to 100%. 

Geospatial visualization: Data is depicted in map form with shapes and colors that illustrate the relationship between specific locations, such as a choropleth or heat map.

Dashboard: Data and visualizations are displayed, usually for business purposes, to help analysts understand and present data.

Data visualization examples

Using data visualization tools, different types of charts and graphs can be created to illustrate important data. These are a few examples of data visualization in the real world:

Data science: Data scientists and researchers have access to libraries using programming languages or tools such as Python or R, which they use to understand and identify patterns in data sets. Tools help these data professionals work more efficiently by coding research with colors, plots, lines, and shapes.

Marketing: Tracking data such as web traffic and social media analytics can help marketers analyze how customers find their products and whether they are early adopters or more of a laggard buyer. Charts and graphs can synthesize data for marketers and stakeholders to better understand these trends. 

Finance: Investors and advisors focused on buying and selling stocks, bonds, dividends, and other commodities will analyze the movement of prices over time to determine which are worth purchasing for short- or long-term periods. Line graphs help financial analysts visualize this data, toggling between months, years, and even decades.

Health policy: Policymakers can use choropleth maps, which are divided by geographical area (nations, states, continents) by colors. They can, for example, use these maps to demonstrate the mortality rates of cancer or ebola in different parts of the world.  

Tackle big business decisions by backing them up with data analytics. Google's Data Analytics Professional Certificate can boost your skills:

Jobs that use data visualization

From marketing to data analytics, data visualization is a skill that can be beneficial to many industries. Building your skills in data visualization can help in the following jobs:

Data visualization analyst: As a data visualization analyst (or specialist), you’d be responsible for creating and editing visual content such as maps, charts, and infographics from large data sets. 

Data visualization engineer: Data visualization engineers and developers are experts in both maneuvering data with SQL, as well as assisting product teams in creating user-friendly dashboards that enable storytelling.

Data analyst: A data analyst collects, cleans, and interprets data sets to answer questions or solve business problems.

Data is everywhere. In creative roles such as graphic designer , content strategist, or social media specialist, data visualization expertise can help you solve challenging problems. You could create dashboards to track analytics as an email marketer or make infographics as a communications designer.

On the flip side, data professionals can benefit from data visualization skills to tell more impactful stories through data.

Read more: 5 Data Visualization Jobs (+ Ways to Build Your Skills Now)

Dive into data visualization

Learn the basics of data visualization with the University of California Davis’ Data Visualization with Tableau Specialization . You’ll leverage Tableau’s library of resources to learn best practices for data visualization and storytelling, learning from real-world and journalistic examples. Tableau is one of the most respected and accessible data visualization tools. 

To learn more about data visualization using Excel and Cognos Analytics, take a look at IBM’s Data Analysis and Visualization Foundations Specialization .

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  • Karleigh Moore
  • Josh Silverman
  • Sam Solomon
  • Blake Farrow
  • Suyeon Khim

There are many systems in the natural world and in society that are amenable to mathematical and computational modeling. However, not everything is easily codified as a system of particles with coordinates and momenta. Some systems and problems such as social networks, ecologies, and genetic regulatory schemes are intrinsically divorced from spacetime descriptions, and instead are more naturally expressed as graphs that reflect their topological properties. At their simplest, graphs are simply collections of nodes – representing some class of objects like people, corporate boards, proteins, or destinations on the globe – and edges, which serve to represent connections like friendships, bridges, or molecular binding interactions.

What is a graph?

Representation of graphs, breadth-first search, depth-first search, contrasting traversals, additional problems.

Consider the highway system of the eastern coast of the United States. A road inspector is given the task of writing reports about the current condition of each highway. What would be the most economical way for him to traverse all the cities? The problem can be modeled as a graph.

In fact, since graphs are dots and lines , they look like road maps. The dots are called vertices or nodes and the lines are called edges. They may have a value assigned to them (weighted) or they may just be a mere indicator of the existence of a path (unweighted). More formally, a graph can be defined as follows:

A graph \(G\) consists of a set of \(V\) of vertices (or nodes ) and a set \(E\) of edges (or arcs ) such that each edge \(e \in E\) is associated with a pair of vertices \(\in V\). A graph \(G\) with vertices \(V\) and edges \(E\) is written as \(G=(V,E)\).

Because graphs are so pervasive, it is useful to define different types of graphs. The following are the most common types of graphs:

Undirected graph: An undirected graph is one in which its edges have no orientations, i.e. no direction is associated with any edge. The edges \((x,y)\) and \((y,x)\) are equivalent.

Directed graph: A directed graph or digraph \(G\) consists of a set \(V\) of vertices (or nodes) and a set of edges (or arcs) such that each edge \(e \in E\) is associated with an ordered pair of vertices. If there is an edge \((x,y)\), it is completely distinct from the edge \((y,x)\).

Undirected graphs are typically represented by a line with no arrows, which implies a bidirectional relationship between node A and node B. Directed graphs use an arrow to show the relationship from A to B.

Directed acyclic graph : A directed acyclic graph (commonly abbreviated as DAG) is a directed graph with no directed cycles. A cycle is any path \(\{A_1, \ldots, A_n\}\) such that the edges \(A_1\rightarrow A_2\), \(A_2\rightarrow A_3\), \(\ldots\), and \(A_n\rightarrow A_1\) all exist, thus forming a loop. A DAG is a graph without a single cycle.

List all the edges and vertices of the undirected graph \(G\) in the figure above. The graph \(G\) consists of the set of vertices \(V\) = {Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey}. Its edges are \(E =\) {(Maine,Massachusetts) , (Massachusetts, Connecticut) , (Connecticut,New York), (New York,Maine), (New York,Massachusetts), (New Jersey, Maine),(Maryland, New York), (Maine, Maryland)}. Note that since the graph is undirected, the order of the tuples in denoting the edges is unimportant. \(_\square\)

Government surveillance agencies have a tendency to accumulate strange new powers during times of panic. The US National Security Agency (NSA) now has the ability to monitor the communications of suspected individuals as well as the communications of people within some number of hops of any suspect. In the communication network above, which person is connected to the greatest number of people through 1 hop or less?

Details and Assumptions:

  • Each dot represents a person.
  • Each line represents communication between the people on either end.
  • If X communicates with Y, and Y communicates with Z, we say that X and Z have a 1-hop connection, and that X has a 0-hop connection with Y.

Above we represented a graph by drawing it. To represent it in a computer, however, we need more formal ways of representing graphs. Here we discuss the two most common ways of representing a graph: the adjacency matrix and the adjacency list.

The adjacency matrix

Represent the graph above using an adjacency matrix. To obtain the adjacency matrix of the graph, we first label the rows and columns with the corresponding ordered vertices. If there exists an edge between two vertices \(i\) and \(j\), then their corresponding cell in the matrix will be assigned \(1\). If there does not exist an edge, then the cell will be assigned the value \(0\). The adjacency matrix for the graph above is thus \[\quad \begin{bmatrix} & a & b & c & d & e\\ a & 0 & 1 & 1 & 0 & 1 \\ b & 1 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 0\\ c & 1 & 0 & 0 & 1 & 1\\ d & 0 & 0 & 1 & 0 & 0\\ e & 1 & 0 & 1 & 0 & 0\\ \end{bmatrix}. \ _\square \quad\]

Adjacency list

An adjacency list representation of a graph is a way of associating each vertex (or node) in the graph with its respective list of neighboring vertices. A common way to do this is to create a Hash table . This table will contain each vertice as a key and the list of adjacent vertices of that vertices as a value.

For our example above, the adjacency list representation will look as follows:

We can see that the adjacency list is much less expensive on memory as the adjacency matrix is very sparse.

Most graph algorithms involve visiting each vertex in \(V\), starting from a root node \(v_0\). There are several ways of achieving this. The two most common traversal algorithms are breadth-first search and depth-first search.

In a breadth-first search , we start with the start node, followed by its adjacent nodes, then all nodes that can be reached by a path from the start node containing two edges, three edges, and so on. Formally the BFS algorithm visits all vertices in a graph \(G\), that are \(k\) edges away from the source vertex \(s\) before visiting any vertex \(k+1\) edges away. This is done until no more vertices are reachable from \(s\). The image below demonstrates exactly how this traversal proceeds:

For a graph \(G = (V,E)\) and a source vertex \(v\), breadth-first search traverses the edges of \(G\) to find all reachable vertices from \(v\). It also computes the shortest distance to any reachable vertex. Any path between two points in a breadth-first search tree corresponds to the shortest path from the root \(v\) to any other node \(s\).

(v){ {add v to queue and mark it} Add(Q, v) Mark v as visited while (not IsEmpty(Q)) do begin w = QueueFront(Q) Remove(Q) {loop invariant : there is a path from vertex w to every vertex in the queue Q} for each unvisited vertex u adjacent to w do begin Mark u as visited Add(Q , u) end { for } end{ while }

We may think of three types of vertices in BFS as tree verties, those that have been taken of the data structure. fringe vertices, those adjacent to tree vertices but not yet visited, and undiscovered vertices, those that we have not encountered yet. If each visited vertex is connected to the edge that caused it to be added to the data structure, then these edges form a tree.

To search a connected component of a graph systematically, we begin with one vertex on the fringe, all others unseen, and perform the following step until all vertices have been visited: "move one vertex \(x\) from the fringe to the tree, and put any unseen vertices adjacent to \(x\) on the fringe." Graph traversal methods differ in how it is decided which vertex should be moved from the fringe to the tree. For breadth-first search we want to choose the vertex from the fringe that was least recently encountered; this corresponds to using a queue to hold vertices on the fringe.

What is the state of the queue at each iteration of BFS, if it is called from node 'a'? PP The table below shows the contents of the queue as the procedure. BFS visits vertices in the graph above. BFS will visit the same vertices as DFS. In this example all of them. \[\begin{array}{l|r} \textbf{Node Visited} & \textbf{Queue} \\ \hline \text{a} & \text{a} \\ \text{ } & \text{(empty)} \\ \text{b } & \text{b} \\ \text{f } & \text{b f} \\ \text{i} & \text{b f i} \\ \text{ } & \text{f i} \\ \text{c} & \text{f i c} \\ \text{e} & \text{f i c e} \\ \text{ } & \text{ i c e} \\ \text{g } & \text{ i c e g} \\ \text{ } & \text{ c e g} \\ \text{ } & \text{ e g} \\ \text{d } & \text{ e g d} \\ \text{ } & \text{ g d} \\ \text{ } & \text{ d} \\ \text{ } & \text{ (empty)} \\ \text{ h} & \text{ h} \\ \text{ } & \text{ (empty) } \end{array}\]

Depth-first search explores edges out of the most recently discovered vertex \(s\)  that still has unexplored edges leaving it. Once all of ’s edges have been explored, the search “backtracks” to explore edges leaving the vertex from which  was discovered. This process continues until we have discovered all the vertices that are reachable from the original source vertex. If any undiscovered vertices remain, then depth-first search selects one of them as a new source, and it repeats the search from that source. The algorithm repeats this entire process until it has discovered every vertex:

  • Visit a vertex \(s\).
  • Mark \(s\) as visited.
  • Recursively visit each unvisited vertex attached to \(s\).

A recursive implementation of DFS:

A non-recursive implementation of DFS, it delays whether a vertex has been discovered until the vertex has been popped from the stack.

Similar to tree traversal, the code for breadth-first search is slightly different from depth-first search. The most commonly mentioned difference is that BFS uses a queue to store alternative choices instead of a stack. This small change however leads to a classical graph traversal algorithm. Depth-first search goes down a single path until the path leads to the goal or we reach a limit. When a path is completely explored we back track. BFS however explores all paths from the starting location at the same time.

As we increase the size of our graph, the contrast between depth-first and breadth-first search is quite evident. Depth-first search explores the graph by looking for new vertices far away from the start point, taking closer vertices only when dead ends are encountered; breadth-first search completely covers the area close to the starting point, moving farther away only when everything close has been looked at. Again, the order in which the nodes are visited depends largely upon the effects of this ordering on the order in which vertices appear on the adjacency lists.

John lives in the Trees of Ten Houses, and it is a most ideal and idyllic place for him and the other dwellers up in the canopy. They have invested a tremendous amount of time in engineering these houses, and to ensure no house felt isolated from the others, they built a fresh, finely crafted bridge between each and every house!

Unfortunately, the Trees of Ten Houses were not immune to thunderstorms, nor were the bridges well engineered. The night was treacherous, howling with wind and freezing with rain, so the odds for the bridges were not good--each bridge seemed just as likely to survive as to be shattered!

Fortunately, as there were so very many bridges in the Trees of Ten Houses, when John did wake the following morning, he found he was able to make his way to each and every house using only the existing bridges, though round-about routes may have been necessary. As they began rebuilding, John became curious... what were the chances that they'd all be so lucky?

More formally, if \(P\) is the probability that, after the storm, John is able to traverse to each and every house, what is \(\big\lfloor 10^{10} P \big\rfloor?\)

  • The Trees of Ten Houses do, in fact, contain precisely 10 houses.
  • Before the storm, there exists a single bridge between each and every unique pair of houses.
  • The storm destroys each bridge with independent probability \(\frac{1}{2}\).
  • John is allowed to traverse through others' houses to try to reach all of them, but he must only use the surviving bridges to get there. No vine swinging allowed.

Tagged under #ComputerScience as this problem is quite tedious to do without it, though not impossible.

Image credit: http://hdscreen.me/wallpaper/2645876-bridges-fantasy-art-landscapes-mountains.

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Graphical Representation of Data

Graphical representation of data is an attractive method of showcasing numerical data that help in analyzing and representing quantitative data visually. A graph is a kind of a chart where data are plotted as variables across the coordinate. It became easy to analyze the extent of change of one variable based on the change of other variables. Graphical representation of data is done through different mediums such as lines, plots, diagrams, etc. Let us learn more about this interesting concept of graphical representation of data, the different types, and solve a few examples.

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Definition of Graphical Representation of Data

A graphical representation is a visual representation of data statistics-based results using graphs, plots, and charts. This kind of representation is more effective in understanding and comparing data than seen in a tabular form. Graphical representation helps to qualify, sort, and present data in a method that is simple to understand for a larger audience. Graphs enable in studying the cause and effect relationship between two variables through both time series and frequency distribution. The data that is obtained from different surveying is infused into a graphical representation by the use of some symbols, such as lines on a line graph, bars on a bar chart, or slices of a pie chart. This visual representation helps in clarity, comparison, and understanding of numerical data.

Representation of Data

The word data is from the Latin word Datum, which means something given. The numerical figures collected through a survey are called data and can be represented in two forms - tabular form and visual form through graphs. Once the data is collected through constant observations, it is arranged, summarized, and classified to finally represented in the form of a graph. There are two kinds of data - quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative data is more structured, continuous, and discrete with statistical data whereas qualitative is unstructured where the data cannot be analyzed.

Principles of Graphical Representation of Data

The principles of graphical representation are algebraic. In a graph, there are two lines known as Axis or Coordinate axis. These are the X-axis and Y-axis. The horizontal axis is the X-axis and the vertical axis is the Y-axis. They are perpendicular to each other and intersect at O or point of Origin. On the right side of the Origin, the Xaxis has a positive value and on the left side, it has a negative value. In the same way, the upper side of the Origin Y-axis has a positive value where the down one is with a negative value. When -axis and y-axis intersect each other at the origin it divides the plane into four parts which are called Quadrant I, Quadrant II, Quadrant III, Quadrant IV. This form of representation is seen in a frequency distribution that is represented in four methods, namely Histogram, Smoothed frequency graph, Pie diagram or Pie chart, Cumulative or ogive frequency graph, and Frequency Polygon.

Principle of Graphical Representation of Data

Advantages and Disadvantages of Graphical Representation of Data

Listed below are some advantages and disadvantages of using a graphical representation of data:

  • It improves the way of analyzing and learning as the graphical representation makes the data easy to understand.
  • It can be used in almost all fields from mathematics to physics to psychology and so on.
  • It is easy to understand for its visual impacts.
  • It shows the whole and huge data in an instance.
  • It is mainly used in statistics to determine the mean, median, and mode for different data

The main disadvantage of graphical representation of data is that it takes a lot of effort as well as resources to find the most appropriate data and then represent it graphically.

Rules of Graphical Representation of Data

While presenting data graphically, there are certain rules that need to be followed. They are listed below:

  • Suitable Title: The title of the graph should be appropriate that indicate the subject of the presentation.
  • Measurement Unit: The measurement unit in the graph should be mentioned.
  • Proper Scale: A proper scale needs to be chosen to represent the data accurately.
  • Index: For better understanding, index the appropriate colors, shades, lines, designs in the graphs.
  • Data Sources: Data should be included wherever it is necessary at the bottom of the graph.
  • Simple: The construction of a graph should be easily understood.
  • Neat: The graph should be visually neat in terms of size and font to read the data accurately.

Uses of Graphical Representation of Data

The main use of a graphical representation of data is understanding and identifying the trends and patterns of the data. It helps in analyzing large quantities, comparing two or more data, making predictions, and building a firm decision. The visual display of data also helps in avoiding confusion and overlapping of any information. Graphs like line graphs and bar graphs, display two or more data clearly for easy comparison. This is important in communicating our findings to others and our understanding and analysis of the data.

Types of Graphical Representation of Data

Data is represented in different types of graphs such as plots, pies, diagrams, etc. They are as follows,

Data Representation Description

A group of data represented with rectangular bars with lengths proportional to the values is a .

The bars can either be vertically or horizontally plotted.

The is a type of graph in which a circle is divided into Sectors where each sector represents a proportion of the whole. Two main formulas used in pie charts are:

The represents the data in a form of series that is connected with a straight line. These series are called markers.

Data shown in the form of pictures is a . Pictorial symbols for words, objects, or phrases can be represented with different numbers.

The is a type of graph where the diagram consists of rectangles, the area is proportional to the frequency of a variable and the width is equal to the class interval. Here is an example of a histogram.

The table in statistics showcases the data in ascending order along with their corresponding frequencies.

The frequency of the data is often represented by f.

The is a way to represent quantitative data according to frequency ranges or frequency distribution. It is a graph that shows numerical data arranged in order. Each data value is broken into a stem and a leaf.

Scatter diagram or is a way of graphical representation by using Cartesian coordinates of two variables. The plot shows the relationship between two variables.

Related Topics

Listed below are a few interesting topics that are related to the graphical representation of data, take a look.

  • x and y graph
  • Frequency Polygon
  • Cumulative Frequency

Examples on Graphical Representation of Data

Example 1 : A pie chart is divided into 3 parts with the angles measuring as 2x, 8x, and 10x respectively. Find the value of x in degrees.

We know, the sum of all angles in a pie chart would give 360º as result. ⇒ 2x + 8x + 10x = 360º ⇒ 20 x = 360º ⇒ x = 360º/20 ⇒ x = 18º Therefore, the value of x is 18º.

Example 2: Ben is trying to read the plot given below. His teacher has given him stem and leaf plot worksheets. Can you help him answer the questions? i) What is the mode of the plot? ii) What is the mean of the plot? iii) Find the range.

Stem Leaf
1 2 4
2 1 5 8
3 2 4 6
5 0 3 4 4
6 2 5 7
8 3 8 9
9 1

Solution: i) Mode is the number that appears often in the data. Leaf 4 occurs twice on the plot against stem 5.

Hence, mode = 54

ii) The sum of all data values is 12 + 14 + 21 + 25 + 28 + 32 + 34 + 36 + 50 + 53 + 54 + 54 + 62 + 65 + 67 + 83 + 88 + 89 + 91 = 958

To find the mean, we have to divide the sum by the total number of values.

Mean = Sum of all data values ÷ 19 = 958 ÷ 19 = 50.42

iii) Range = the highest value - the lowest value = 91 - 12 = 79

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Practice Questions on Graphical Representation of Data

Faqs on graphical representation of data, what is graphical representation.

Graphical representation is a form of visually displaying data through various methods like graphs, diagrams, charts, and plots. It helps in sorting, visualizing, and presenting data in a clear manner through different types of graphs. Statistics mainly use graphical representation to show data.

What are the Different Types of Graphical Representation?

The different types of graphical representation of data are:

  • Stem and leaf plot
  • Scatter diagrams
  • Frequency Distribution

Is the Graphical Representation of Numerical Data?

Yes, these graphical representations are numerical data that has been accumulated through various surveys and observations. The method of presenting these numerical data is called a chart. There are different kinds of charts such as a pie chart, bar graph, line graph, etc, that help in clearly showcasing the data.

What is the Use of Graphical Representation of Data?

Graphical representation of data is useful in clarifying, interpreting, and analyzing data plotting points and drawing line segments , surfaces, and other geometric forms or symbols.

What are the Ways to Represent Data?

Tables, charts, and graphs are all ways of representing data, and they can be used for two broad purposes. The first is to support the collection, organization, and analysis of data as part of the process of a scientific study.

What is the Objective of Graphical Representation of Data?

The main objective of representing data graphically is to display information visually that helps in understanding the information efficiently, clearly, and accurately. This is important to communicate the findings as well as analyze the data.

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  • Graphical Representation

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What is a Graph

In mathematics, a graph is a diagrammatic illustration that is used to represent data values in a systematic, organized and understandable manner.  It is indeed a very tedious task to analyze lots of data. However, when the same numerical data is represented in a pictorial form, it becomes easy to understand the relationship between the provided data objects and the concepts represented. It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Therefore, graphs are particularly useful when it comes to displaying and analyzing data. 

The data have shown on the graph usually represents a relationship between various things for comparison among them. It could also help us to understand the changing trends over some time. With the help of graphs, it becomes easier to comprehend information.

Types of Graphical Representation 

To represent various kinds of data, different kinds of graphs are used. Some of the commonly used graphs are as follows: 

In a line graph, a line shows trends in data. It can also be used to predict the changing trends of the displayed data objects in the future. 

A bar graph is used when data has been categorized or sorted. It is the best kind of graph for comparing data. In this, solid bars are used to represent different categories or data values.

A histogram is similar to a bar graph. However, instead of making comparisons, it groups the numerical data into ranges. It is most commonly used to show frequency distributions. 

Pie or Circle Graph

In a pie chart, a circle represents statistical graphics. It is divided into many slices or pies to represent the proportion of numbers. The length of the arc of each pipe corresponds to the quantity represented by it.

Stem and Leaf Graph

A stem and leaf plot is a special type of table in which the data values are divided into a stem, which represents the initial digit or digits, and a leaf, which usually represents the last digit. 

How to plot the Data Accurately on Graphs?

It is of utmost importance that the information which is being represented graphically should be accurate and easy to understand. The various points that should be kept in mind are: 

The scale chosen to plot the graph should be according to the data values that have to be represented.

The index makes it easier for the reader to read and interpret the data represented by various colours, patterns, designs, etc.

The Source of Data

As and when necessary, the source of data can be mentioned at the bottom of the graph. 

The purpose of making the graph is defeated if the representation does not look tidy. Hence, it must be ensured that the data so represented is neat and visually appealing. 

There is no need to unnecessarily complicate the graph. The simpler, the better.

Basics of Graphical Representation

A graph usually consists of two lines called the coordinate axes. The horizontal line is called the x-axis, and the vertical line is called the y axis. The intersection of the two axes is the point of origin. The values on the x-axis towards the right of the origin are considered positive, and towards the left are negative. Similarly, on the y-axis, the values above the origin will be positive and the values below the origin will be negative. 

 Benefits of using Graphs 

Graphs save time. If the same information is written down, it becomes a period process to spot the trends and be able to analyze the data properly. 

A graph can be used to represent information neatly and also takes less space.

It is easy to understand.

Analysing a graphical representation of data does not take much and helps in making quick decisions. 

Graphs give you a summarized version of a long report that contains a large amount of data. 

Graphs and tables are less likely to have any errors and mistakes. 

Graphical representation of two or more data sets will allow you to compare the information and take preventive measures to avoid mistakes in the future. 

By making the data easy to understand, graphs eliminate the literacy barriers so that anyone can analyse and interpret the presented data. 

With just a glance at the graphical representation, a person can make quick and informed decisions.  

Some Rules for Graphical Representation of Data 

Like any other mathematical concept, graphical representation also has some rules you must follow. These rules will help you present the information on a graph effectively. Below are the rules for graphical representation of data: 

When you are making a graph, you should give it an appropriate title that highlights the subject of the given data.

While making a graph, do not forget to mention the measurement unit. 

Make an index using colours, designs, shades, lines, etc. to make the graphical representation easier to understand.  

You have to choose an appropriate scale to represent the given set of data. 

Construct the graph as simple as possible so that everyone can easily understand the presented data.

Whether you are making a pie chart or a bar graph, it should look neat and clean so that the teacher can easily read the figures. 

Importance of Graphical Representation 

Graphical representation gives you a visual presentation of the given data to make it easier to understand. Graphs help you identify different patterns over a short and long period. It assists you in the interpretation of data and comparison of two or more data sets. Here are reasons why graphical representation is important: 

Graphs are widely accepted in the corporate world as it summarises the data into an understandable format and avoids wastage of time. 

When you want to compare two or more different data sets, graphs are your best choice. A graphical representation of all the data sets will allow you to quickly analyze the information and help you in making quick decisions. 

Through descriptive reports and information, it becomes difficult to make decisions. However, with graphs, the management can analyse the situation more clearly and make the right decisions. 

With tables and graphs, the information can be presented in an organised and logical manner, making it easier to understand for anyone. 

Graphical representation of data does not demand much of your time, improving the overall efficiency. You can quickly make the graphs within minutes and focus on other important work. 

Qualitative representation might include many grammatical errors and other mistakes that can mislead the person reading it. Since graphs involve numerical representation of data, there are fewer chances of errors and mistakes. 

Graphs give you the entire summary of a large amount of data.    

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FAQs on Graphical Representation

1. What is a frequency polygon graph?

A frequency polygon graph can be used to represent the same set of data which is represented by a histogram. In this type of graph, lines are used to connect the midpoints of each interval. The frequencies of the data interval are represented by the height at which the midpoints are plotted in the graph. A frequency polygon can be created using the already drawn histogram, or by calculating the midpoint from the intervals of the frequency distribution table. To calculate the midpoint, we need to find the average of the upper and the lower values of the interval/range. 

Frequency polygon gives us an idea regarding the shape of the data and the trends that it follows during a particular duration of time. 

Steps to draw a frequency polygon: 

Calculate the classmark for each interval, which is equal to (upper limit + lower limit)/2. 

Represent the class marks on the x-axis and their corresponding frequencies on the y-axis. 

For every class mark on the x-axis, plot the frequencies of the y-axis.  

Join all the obtained points to get a curve.

The figure obtained is called a frequency polygon. 

2. What is the difference between a Bar Graph and a Histogram?

The most commonly visible difference between a bar graph and a histogram is that, in a bar graph, the bars have spaces between them, whereas, in a histogram, the bars are drawn adjacent to each other, without leaving any spaces. 

As they both make use of bars to represent the data, it becomes slightly difficult to understand the fundamental difference between the two. A histogram is a graphical representation that uses bars to demonstrate the frequency of numerical data. In a histogram, elements are grouped, so they can be considered as ranges.

A bar graph is a diagrammatic representation that uses bars for the comparison of different categories of data.  The plotted elements are treated as individual entities, and not as a range. The bars can be drawn horizontally or vertically. The height of the bar corresponds to the size of the data object.

3. From which platform can I learn Graphical Representation?

Vedantu is the best e-learning platform from where you can learn Graphical Representation. To start studying the concept of graphical representations, you can visit our official website or download our mobile app from the app store or play store. Our learning platform is available to all students across the globe for absolutely free. Apart from the Graphical Representation, you will find plenty of study material for different topics of Maths. From the website, you can learn concepts, such as Number System, Area of Triangle, Factorisation, and much more.    

4. What are the advantages of a Bar Graph?

A bar graph is the most widely used method of graphical representation. Below are some of the advantages of a bar graph: 

A bar graph shows every category from the given frequency distribution. 

Bar graphs summarize a large chunk of data into a simple, understandable, and interpretable form. 

With a bar graph, you can easily compare two or more different data sets. 

You can study the varying patterns in a bar graph over a long period. 

A bar graph makes the trends easier to highlight than other types of graphical representation.  

5. How to decide which graph is suitable for a situation?

Sometimes, the question does not specify which type of graph you have to use. In these cases, you will have to analyze the given data and decide which graph will be more suitable. When you have to compare two different categories of data sets, you should use a bar graph as it makes the data easy to interpret. If you have to find the trends and progress over a short period, you can use line graphs. Moreover, when you have to represent a whole graphically, a pie chart is the best option.   

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graphical representation wikipedia

WikiGraphs is a dataset of Wikipedia articles each paired with a knowledge graph, to facilitate the research in conditional text generation, graph generation and graph representation learning. Existing graph-text paired datasets typically contain small graphs and short text (1 or few sentences), thus limiting the capabilities of the models that can be learned on the data.

WikiGraphs is collected by pairing each Wikipedia article from the established WikiText-103 benchmark with a subgraph from the Freebase knowledge graph. This makes it easy to benchmark against other state-of-the-art text generative models that are capable of generating long paragraphs of coherent text. Both the graphs and the text data are of significantly larger scale compared to prior graph-text paired datasets.

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graphical representation wikipedia

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COMMENTS

  1. Data and information visualization

    Data and information visualization (data viz/vis or info viz/vis) [2] is the practice of designing and creating easy-to-communicate and easy-to-understand graphic or visual representations of a large amount [3] of complex quantitative and qualitative data and information with the help of static, dynamic or interactive visual items.

  2. Chart

    Chart. A pie chart showing the composition of the 38th Parliament of Canada. A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart ". [1] A chart can represent tabular numeric data ...

  3. Graphics

    Graphics (from Ancient Greek γραφικός (graphikós) 'pertaining to drawing, painting, writing, etc.') are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain.In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of data, as in design and manufacture, in typesetting and the graphic arts, and in educational ...

  4. Graphical Representation of Data

    Graphical Representation of Data: Graphical Representation of Data," where numbers and facts become lively pictures and colorful diagrams.Instead of staring at boring lists of numbers, we use fun charts, cool graphs, and interesting visuals to understand information better. In this exciting concept of data visualization, we'll learn about different kinds of graphs, charts, and pictures ...

  5. See, also: Featured visualizations of Wikipedia

    Explore the relationships among Wikipedia articles with a graph of See Also links. By: Density Design & Médialab Sciences Po; Code: here; Data: Wikipedia API 2016. Music Genre Popularity Over the Years "Wikipedia is a gold mine of lists, lists of lists and even lists of lists of lists. One of these lists of lists happens to be Billboard's ...

  6. A Short History of Data Visualisation

    In this article we take a look at some of the major innovators in the graphical representation of data and some of their famous works. Map-makers. Ptolemy's world map — Source: Wikipedia. Arguably the first data visualisations were in the field of Cartography. Originally used for the purposes of navigation, land ownership and general human ...

  7. Data Visualization: Definition, Benefits, and Examples

    Data visualization is the representation of information and data using charts, graphs, maps, and other visual tools. These visualizations allow us to easily understand any patterns, trends, or outliers in a data set. Data visualization also presents data to the general public or specific audiences without technical knowledge in an accessible ...

  8. Graphs

    A graph G G consists of a set of V V of vertices (or nodes) and a set E E of edges (or arcs) such that each edge e \in E e ∈ E is associated with a pair of vertices \in V ∈ V. A graph G G with vertices V V and edges E E is written as G= (V,E) G = (V,E). Because graphs are so pervasive, it is useful to define different types of graphs.

  9. Graphical Representation of Data

    Examples on Graphical Representation of Data. Example 1: A pie chart is divided into 3 parts with the angles measuring as 2x, 8x, and 10x respectively. Find the value of x in degrees. Solution: We know, the sum of all angles in a pie chart would give 360º as result. ⇒ 2x + 8x + 10x = 360º. ⇒ 20 x = 360º.

  10. Graph (abstract data type)

    UML class diagram of a Graph (abstract data type) The basic operations provided by a graph data structure G usually include: [1]. adjacent(G, x, y): tests whether there is an edge from the vertex x to the vertex y;neighbors(G, x): lists all vertices y such that there is an edge from the vertex x to the vertex y;add_vertex(G, x): adds the vertex x, if it is not there;

  11. Wikipedia visual graph reveals new insights into article connections

    When using Wikipedia you may not have given much thought to the intricate web that forms the web-based encyclopedia. However a newly created visual graph representation of Wikipedia created by ...

  12. Graphical Representation

    Graphical Representation is a way of analysing numerical data. It exhibits the relation between data, ideas, information and concepts in a diagram. It is easy to understand and it is one of the most important learning strategies. It always depends on the type of information in a particular domain. There are different types of graphical ...

  13. 2: Graphical Descriptions of Data

    2: Graphical Descriptions of Data. In chapter 1, you were introduced to the concepts of population, which again is a collection of all the measurements from the individuals of interest. Remember, in most cases you can't collect the entire population, so you have to take a sample. Thus, you collect data either through a sample or a census.

  14. What Is Data Visualization? Definition & Examples

    Data visualization is the graphical representation of information and data. By using v isual elements like charts, graphs, and maps, data visualization tools provide an accessible way to see and understand trends, outliers, and patterns in data. Additionally, it provides an excellent way for employees or business owners to present data to non ...

  15. Graphical Representation

    Importance of Graphical Representation. Graphical representation gives you a visual presentation of the given data to make it easier to understand. Graphs help you identify different patterns over a short and long period. It assists you in the interpretation of data and comparison of two or more data sets.

  16. Graphic communication

    Graphic communication as the name suggests is communication using graphic elements. These elements include symbols such as glyphs and icons, images such as drawings and photographs, and can include the passive contributions of substrate, colour and surroundings.It is the process of creating, producing, and distributing material incorporating words and images to convey data, concepts, and emotions.

  17. Graphical Representation: Types, Rules, Principles & Examples

    A graphical representation is the geometrical image of a set of data that preserves its characteristics and displays them at a glance. It is a mathematical picture of data points. It enables us to think about a statistical problem in visual terms. It is an effective tool for the preparation, understanding and interpretation of the collected data.

  18. 8.4: Graph Representations

    The keys then would correspond to the indices of each node and the value would be a reference to the list of adjacent node indices. Another implementation might require that each node keep a list of its adjacent nodes. This page titled 8.4: Graph Representations is shared under a CC BY-SA license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by ...

  19. Graphical model

    Generally, probabilistic graphical models use a graph-based representation as the foundation for encoding a distribution over a multi-dimensional space and a graph that is a compact or factorized representation of a set of independences that hold in the specific distribution. Two branches of graphical representations of distributions are commonly used, namely, Bayesian networks and Markov ...

  20. WikiGraphs Dataset

    WikiGraphs is a dataset of Wikipedia articles each paired with a knowledge graph, to facilitate the research in conditional text generation, graph generation and graph representation learning. Existing graph-text paired datasets typically contain small graphs and short text (1 or few sentences), thus limiting the capabilities of the models that can be learned on the data.

  21. List of presidents of the United States by age

    In this list of presidents of the United States by age, the first table charts the age of each president of the United States at the time of presidential inauguration (first inauguration if elected to multiple and consecutive terms), upon leaving office, and at the time of death. Where the president is still living, their lifespan and post-presidency timespan are calculated to September 3, 2024.

  22. A couple of months ago, I created WikiGraph, a graph-based ...

    no worries at all! i'm not super familiar with querying wikidata, but i think the main differences between the tool you linked and my app are (a) the graphical representation of the data (a graph-based format vs. a linear format) and (b) the actual content of the data -- the site you linked returns information on the Wikidata properties of individual Wikipedia concecpts/articles, whereas ...

  23. Graph (discrete mathematics)

    A graph with six vertices and seven edges. In discrete mathematics, particularly in graph theory, a graph is a structure consisting of a set of objects where some pairs of the objects are in some sense "related". The objects are represented by abstractions called vertices (also called nodes or points) and each of the related pairs of vertices is called an edge (also called link or line). [1]