What stands out in this image? What would you correct?
Page 231 (in the physical version of our textbook) has a nice checklist to consider when including graphics:
- Does the graphic have a purpose?
- Is the graphic simple and uncluttered?
- Does the graphic present a manageable amount of information?
- Does the graphic meet readers’ format expectations?
- Is the graphic clearly labeled?
- Is the graphic honest?
- If you want to use an existing graphic, do you have the legal right to do so? If so, have you cited its source appropriately?
- Is the graphic clearly visible and easily accessible?
- Is the graphic introduced and explained clearly in the text?
- Is the graphic inoffensive to your readers?
Images can be purposely deceitful in order to promote a product, company, agenda, etc. Images, like the one above, might have a clear purpose and aren't particularly nefarious, but their content or display might be misleading. Additionally, images might not match the textual content. For example, I've had students submit some (awesome) recipes in the past. However, every once in a while a student won't snap their own pictures of the process and will just pull some images from the internet. When this happens, the steps don't often reflect how the meal was prepared or assembled. For example, the image of a burger doesn't match how they prepared it in their steps.
INSTRUCTIONS
Format
- ion in the graphic and how/why the image is misleading or unethical. After your description, briefly discuss how you might improve the graphic. You don't need to cite the complete image, but at the very least, please be sure to include a link.
Your response should be clearly written in complete sentences. Please respond with at least two paragraphs or at least 200 - 300 words. For example, here's how one student responded to another peer after viewing the graph at the top (note that you won't be asked responding to a peer for this assignment; I included this example because I liked the analysis):
I agree with how your image graphic is faulty, by making the scaling ratio look like a huge difference in women's height. In reality, the difference in heights in the graph is only an inch apart. I also agree with you on how the graph starts its measurement incorrectly to control the statistics. Instead of the graph beginning at 0 or 1 foot, where it will make the most sense since people around the world can vary in height, it decides to make the lowest value 5 feet. This image gives off the wrong idea to a reader, and is consequently unethical, by portraying someone that is from the country of India be very short. It also gives off the incorrect idea that women in Latvia are extra tall when in reality they are of average height. I enjoyed the image you picked because it was a comical example of incorrectly made graphs.