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Classic mistake of not including zero on the vertical axis of a graph. If you're thinking "but then there won't be so much variation" you're right. Leaving zero
by phkahler 3y ago
Classic mistake of not including zero on the vertical axis of a graph. If you're thinking "but then there won't be so much variation" you're right. Leaving zero off allows small variations to look large.
- PaulHoule 3y agoOn the other hand there are the cases where you do want to emphasize small variations. In a control chart showing the fill weight of cereal boxes you certainly don’t want zero on the chart. Neither do you want to plot daily temperatures in a city on a chart that includes 0 Kelvin.
- hef19898 3y agoSure you do, why not? If you don't, show the deviation values (plus and minus) centered around zero again.
- Scubabear68 3y agoExactly. A lot of investment market charts are zoomed in like that because small deviations can matter a lot, and you don't want the base price (or whatever measure you're looking at) to swamp the signal.
- lolinder 3y agoIncluding zero would have helped the "said" graph but not solved it—it just would still look like "said" dropped to almost 1/3 of its prior popularity, when what actually happened is the makeup of the sample changed dramatically.
- mattkrause 3y agoAm I alone in thinking that the graph was okay and the text was just indulging in a bit of hyperbole? It's a sudden ~50% dip, following nearly a century of apparent stability.