Presenting Your Data
There are many ways to present your data. Some of the options that are most useful for ESS students are explained in this section.
The table below summarises the recommended types of graphs/charts for different types of data. Each type of graph/chart is explained in details in the links below.
Line graphs
Line graphs tell the story of how something has changed over time. Your data needs to be numerical (such as lengths, temperatures, percentages or weights) and measured over a time period (such as a week...
Bar Charts & Histograms
Both bar charts and histograms show how often something occurs.A bar chart shows the frequency of different events occurring. The height of each bar indicates the frequency of each event.If the values...
X-Y Scatter Graphs
X-Y scatter graphs display symbols using the (X,Y) coordinates of the data points for the paired variables. Each data point must have two paired values.These graphs can show correlations or relationships...
Box & Whisker Plots
Box & whisker plots (also called five-number summary plots) show the minimum, first quartile, median, third quartile and maximum values of a data set. They provide a useful way of comparing data sets.
Bubble Graphs
Bubble graphs are a variation of X-Y scatter graphs where the size of the plotted points indicates the frequency of that data point. These graphs can be complicated to interpret so they should be used...
Pie Charts
A pie chart shows how a total amount is divided between different categorical variables.
Kite Diagrams
Kite diagrams provide a graphical summary of different observations made along a transect.
Rose Diagrams
Rose diagrams are useful in fieldwork to analyse data containing magnitude and direction values.