Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Graphics and Ethics

In Chapter Twelve, your textbook discusses and provides examples of effective and ineffective graphics, which include graphs, charts, illustrations, and images. As your book mentions, sometimes graphics can be unethical, in that they misrepresent data or a product or a research finding. Can you find a graphic online that you find unethical? Use the images your book includes as examples of the types of images to look for. Do not use advertising images for this posting, but rather other kinds of graphics that serve as interesting (but in this case unethical) instances of technical communication.

11 comments:

  1. http://moneycentral.msn.com/articles/images/050321_immigrant.gif

    The above graph is a U.S. Census Bureau of American immigrants. The graph dates from the year 1850 to 2000. The graph is misleading in the way that it present the three variables within the graph. The height of the bar indicates the number of immigrants within the United States while the percentage above each bar represents the percentage of immigrants/total population.

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  2. http://nmt-newmark-technical-writing.blogspot.com/2009/10/graphics-and-ethics.html

    The above link leads to a site of a class project involving data about the number of different kinds of animals that are being ran over. Through the site is clearly not the most professional the graphs provided here are vary unclear. Particularly the bar graph at the bottom of the page. This graph is unethical because it is vary confusing and distracting with the different colors that someone presenting this graph could say just about anything about it. The use of color gradients makes the legend essentially useless. The dark bake round hides most everything except the biggest and brightest bar. etc.

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  3. http://moneycentral.msn.com/articles/images/050321_immigrant.gif

    Here is a graph of foreign born population and the percentage total of immigrants in the US from 1850 to 2000. This graph is extremely convoluted and does not clearly give any information.

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  4. http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10767
    Here are two charts comparing the dollar index of the year of its publication 2006 with the '30s and '70s, for what it is worth. These graphs are very confusing and misleading thus, can be viewed as unethical.Indeed, on top of the first chart for example, we can read "Dollar index,sept 1929-1940 vs. since 3/2000 to current" which seems to suggest that we would see on the horizontal axis years starting from 1929 to 1940, which is the case. It also suggest that on the vertical axis of the chart we would see years starting on march 2000 to 2006, but it is not the case instead we can see some values with no direct meanings.

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  5. http://www.mrdowling.com/images/607oil.gif

    The above link leads to an image that was found on a page that talked about petroleum. The image shows three barrels of oil, all with signs of currency on them, around a man who is clearly Middle Eastern (he is wearing traditional Muslim apparel). The image vilifies the Middle East oil industry and reinforces a negative stereotype about the Middle East and oil.

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  6. http://www.rogerwendell.com/images/mexico/immigrant_crossing_san_diego_03-18-2004.jpg

    This link is to a picture of a roadside sign. This picture is supposed to communicate to drivers. The intended message should be that people are likely to cross the road in this area. This picture is unethical because it has racist overtones

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  8. http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/november%20jobs%20graph.jpg

    The link above leads to a graph produced by the US Department of the Treasury. The graph is difficult to understand because there are two different y-axis scales, each applying to different lines of the graph. However, it is not specified which lines apply to which axes. Also, because of the different axes, the graph appears to make the claim that the number of jobs became greater than the rate of employment at the point where the lines for the unemployment rate and the number of jobs intersect. However, the scale on the right for jobs does not correspond at all with the scale on the left side of the graph for unemployment rates. Thus, comparing these two lines on the same graph is misleading to the viewer. In addition, the line which denotes the date when President Bush signed the Jobs and Growth Act is misleading, as it seems to imply that the decline in unemployment and the increase in the number of jobs were a direct result of that act. However, there could be numerous other factors that were involved and it’s even possible that the Jobs and Growth Act had no impact on any of the variables pictured on the graph. Thus, because this graph is so hard to read and presents the data in ways that are misleading to the reader, it is an unethical graphic.

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  9. This bar graph is misleading, because it compares only the percent change of revenues and expenditures. Percent changes cannot be equated and compared. For instance, a one percent change for a million-dollar expenditure would be ten thousand dollars, but a one percent change for a five-hundred dollar expenditure would be only 5 dollars.

    http://www.macroscan.com/fet/feb01/chart/Fiscal_Responsibility/chart5.gif

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  10. http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/environment/2009-10-18-target-plastic-bags-green-environment_N.htm?se=yahoorefer

    This link goes to page that has a bar graph of the amount of plastic bags recycled in the United States. The x- and y-axis are not properly labeled and the title of the graph doesn’t really tell you what the graph is. The note in the graph explains why the graph is there, but the graph doesn’t tell the percentage of plastic bags being recycled in each year. The graph shows that more weight of plastic is being recycled with each progressing year, but it doesn’t show that the weight recycled is small in relation to the weight produced. The note says the amount of bags produced is still much bigger than the amount recycled. The graph shows the weight of bags being recycled in each year. There was no mention of how many bags equal one ton or anything to compare the number to the weight. The reader is just supposed to assume that the weight given is a fraction of the weight of bags produced.

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  11. http://public.deloitte.com/media/0421/Images/us_blackbox_chart1_072007.gif

    This graph was posted by a service company on how a high performance culture runs. They have the values and beliefs in the center but have other necessities listed. Some of them are goal setting and budgeting, office layout, and messages to peers. This might sound a little offensive to somebody that lives in a smaller country who might be less accessible to tools allowing them to perform these tasks.

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