WHAT ARE THE GRAPHICS AND DATA TABLES FOR?

The graphs and tables represent and interpret information from different sources, in a clear, precise and orderly manner. Almost all types of information can be organized in a data table and represented in some kind of graph.

According to the characteristics and the amount of data, it is convenient to use one or the other graphic.

1.1- Graphics

The graphs allow to visualize the information contained in the tables in a fast and simple way, demonstrating with greater clarity the relationship that these data have among themselves.

The best known are:

A- Bar Graphs

Are those that use rectangles (bars) that are placed parallel. The height indicates the frequency of that data. The bar charts allow to represent numerical information in a clear and orderly way, to communicate it to other people. With the information represented in the graphs you can quickly and visually interpret the information, facilitating further analysis.

B- Line or line graphs

It is a set of points connected by a line in a Cartesian system, which show trends of a variable over a period of time.

C- Pie chart or by sectors

It is a circle diagram that visually represents information in imaginary slices of a cake.

D- Pictograms

They are the most striking, since they are represented by drawings, the bars are replaced by drawings. They are used to achieve the massive interest of the public.

E- Histogram

It is a graph formed by contiguous bars, where each represents a range of values, used to express information about data that are grouped.

 

1.2- Tables

They are the ones that organize the data to show how often something happens (frequency), it allows organizing the collected numerical information, for example, through a survey.

2- Frequency

Both in the tables and in the graphs the number of times a data is repeated is called the frequency of that data.

In the table, all the data are organized together with the frequencies that correspond to them.

Ex:

In the graph or bar chart, each data is represented by a bar whose height indicates the frequency, that is, how many times that data is repeated, just like I explained at the beggining of this post.