Presentation of Data

Statistics is all about data. Presenting data effectively and efficiently is an art. You may have
uncovered many truths that are complex and need long explanations while writing. This is where
the importance of presentation of data comes in. You have to present your findings in such a way
that the readers can go through them quickly and understand each and every point that you
wanted to showcase. As time progressed and new and complex research started happening, people
realised the importance of the presentation of data to make sense of the findings.
Define Data Presentation
Data presentation is defined as the process of using various graphical formats to visually represent
the relationship between two or more data sets so that an informed decision can be made based
on them.
Types of Data Presentation
Broadly speaking, there are three methods of data presentation:
 Textual
 Tabular
 Diagrammatic
Textual Ways of Presenting Data
Out of the different methods of data presentation, this is the most simple one. You just write your
findings in a coherent manner and your job is done. The demerit of this method is that one has to
read the whole text to get a clear picture. Yes, introduction, summary and conclusion can help
condense the information.

Tabular Ways of Data Presentation and Analysis

To avoid the complexities involved in the textual way of data presentation, people use tables and
charts to present data. In this method, data is presented in rows and columns - just like you see
in a cricket match showing who made how many runs. Each row and column has an attribute
(name, year, sex, age and other things like these). It is against these attributes that data is written
within a cell.

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Diagrammatic Presentation: Graphical Presentation of Data In Statistics
This kind of data presentation and analysis method says a lot with dramatically short amounts of
time.
Diagrammatic Presentation has been divided into further categories:
Geometric Diagram
When a Diagrammatic presentation involves shapes like a bar or circle, we call that a Geometric
Diagram. Examples of Geometric Diagram
Bar Diagram
Simple Bar Diagram

Simple Bar Diagram is composed of rectangular bars. All of these bars have the same width and
they are placed at an equal distance from each other. The bars are placed on the X-axis. The height
or length of the bars is used as the means of measurement. So on the Y-axis, you have the
measurement relevant to the data.
Suppose, you want to present the run scored by each batsman in a game in the form of a bar chart.
Mark the runs on the Y-axis - in ascending order from the bottom. So the lowest scorer will be
represented in the form of the smallest bar and highest scorer in the form of the longest bar.

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Multiple Bar Diagram

In many states of India, electric bills have bar diagrams showing the consumption in the last 5
months. Along with these bars, they also have bars that show the consumption happened in the
same months of the previous year. This kind of Bar Diagram is called Multiple Bar Diagrams.
Component Bar Diagram

Sometimes, a bar is divided into two or more parts. For example, if there is a Bar Diagram, the
bars of which show the percentage of male voters who voted and who didn’t and the female voters
who voted and who didn’t. Instead of creating separate bars for who did and who did not, you can
divide one bar into who did and who did not.
Pie Chart

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A pie chart is a chart where you divide a pie (a circle) into different parts based on the data. Each
of the data is first transformed into percentage and then that percentage figure is multiplied by
3.6 degrees. The result that you get is the angular degree of that corresponding data to be drawn
in the pie chart. So, for example, you get 30 degrees as the result, on the pie chart you draw that
angle from the centre.
Frequency Diagram
Suppose you want to present data that shows how many students have 1 to 2 pens, how many have
3 to 5 pens, how many have 6 to 10 pens (grouped frequency) you do that with the help of a
Frequency Diagram. A Frequency Diagram can be of many kinds:
Histogram

Where the grouped frequency of pens (from the above example) is written on the X-axis and the
numbers of students are marked on the Y-axis. The data is presented in the form of bars.
Frequency Polygon

When you join the midpoints of the upper side of the rectangles in a histogram, you get a
Frequency Polygon

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Frequency Curve

When you draw a freehand line that passes through the points of the Frequency Polygon, you get
a Frequency Curve.
Ogive

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Suppose 2 students got 0-20 marks in maths, 5 students got 20-30 marks and 4 students got 30-
50 marks in Maths. So how many students got less than 50 marks? Yes, 5+2=7. And how many
students got more than 20 marks? 5+4=9. This type of more than and less than data are
represented in the form of the ogive. The meeting point of the less than and more than line will
give you the Median.
Arithmetic Line Graph

If you want to see the trend of Corona infection vs the number of recoveries from January 2020
to December 2020, you can do that in the form of Arithmetic Line Graph. The months should be
marked on the X-axis and the number of infections and recoveries are marked on the Y-axis. You
can compare if the recovery is greater than the infection and if the recovery and infection are going
at the same rate or not with the help of this Diagram.