The difference between Cleveland and Tufte is that the former is "empirical" (he discusses lots of results from psychological studies on comprehension of graphi

The difference between Cleveland and Tufte is that the former is "empirical" (he discusses lots of results from psychological studies on comprehension of graphics) rather than one man's opinion. Also, Cleveland actually has accomplished something other than scolding and praising. Personally, I liked Cleveland's "Elements of Graphing Data" (http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Graphing-Data-William-Cleveland/dp/0963488414 http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Graphing-Data-William-Clevela...) better than "Visualizing Data", though they overlap a lot.