Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment This is a useful enumeration (Score 2, Insightful) 86

Naturally, despite Zed's assertion, not all graphs need to avoid his enumeration of pitfalls. For example, if the target audience is mathematically unsophisticated, most statistics (save perhaps mean) are inappropriate. Or perhaps red is meaningful in some contexts. Or maybe the presenter wants to show a very small delta, so an axis range is chosen to illustrate this.

Nevertheless, Zed's enumeration can be extremely valuable in helping a discerning reader (who doesn't already know it all!) to critically interpret graphs in order to decide what s/he may conclude. For example, if system X appears to outperforms system Y, but the difference may be within the (unpresented) deviation, one should not accept the assertion that X is superior. Instead, one may conclude that X may be better than or comparable to Y.

Zed's article can help some of us tell the difference between lies and truth. That's a good thing. The unfortunate weakness of the article is that the example is not particularly compelling. It simply doesn't illustrate the most important pitfalls.

Slashdot Top Deals

Kleeneness is next to Godelness.

Working...