The goal of this assignment is to recognize and repair common errors that lead to misleading figures. A secondary goal is to develop skills necessary to critically interpret data from figures, especially misleading ones.
Mark Twain popularized the phrase, “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Raw data are difficult for readers to understand, so a key skill for all scientific communication is using figures to present data summaries for readers. Unfortunately, poor presentation of data in figures can be misleading, at best, or fraudulent, at worse.
For this exercise, you will read a claim and observe a figure that was used as evidence to support the claim. The figures are from a real cable television news network, although the claims that go along with them are changed for instructional purposes. For each claim, evaluate the figure to support the claim. In 2–3 sentences, identify why the graph is misleading and re-draw the graph to properly present the data. Be sure to include all necessary components of the figure including axis labels, units, and a descriptive caption.
- Claim: "Expiration of the Bush tax cuts will dramatically increase the top tax rate"
- Claim: "Gas prices have been stabilizing over the past year"
- Claim: "Obama's policies have had little impact on the unemployment rate"
| Points | Criteria |
|---|---|
| 4-5 | Responses correctly identify main issues with reasonable correction and revision |
| 2-4 | Responses either do not identify main issues or do not offer reasonable correction and revision |
| 0-2 | Responses neither identify main issues nor offer reasonable correction and revision, or assignment is late or incomplete |