Presenting Data: How to Communicate Your Message Effectively

by Ed Swires-Hennessy

A clear easy-to-read guide to presenting your message using statistical data Poor presentation of data is everywhere; basic principles are forgotten or ignored. As a result, audiences are presented with confusing tables and charts that do not make immediate sense. This book is intended to be read by all who present data in any form. The author, a chartered statistician who has run many courses on the subject of data presentation, presents numerous examples alongside an explanation of how improvements can be made and basic principles to adopt. He advocates following four key ‘C’ words in all Clear, Concise, Correct and Consistent. Following the principles in the book will lead to clearer, simpler and easier to understand messages which can then be assimilated faster. Anyone from student to researcher, journalist to policy adviser, charity worker to government statistician, will benefit from reading this book. More importantly, it will also benefit the recipients of the presented data. ‘Ed Swires-Hennessy, a recognised expert in the presentation of statistics, explains and clearly describes a set of “principles” of clear and objective statistical communication. This book should be required reading for all those who present statistics.’
Richard Laux , UK Statistics Authority ‘I think this is a fantastic book and hope everyone who presents data or statistics makes time to read it first.’
David Marder , Chief Media Adviser, Office for National Statistics, UK ‘Ed’s book makes his tried-and-tested material widely available to anyone concerned with understanding and presenting data. It is full of interesting insights, is highly practical and packed with sensible suggestions and nice ideas that you immediately want to try out.’
Dr Shirley Coleman , Principal Statistician, Industrial Statistics Research Unit, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Newcastle University, UK

Genres: Mathematics

152 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am ambivalent about this.

For one thing, this a useful thing. For another, this world is getting more stupid by the minute, since it's not the way you present data that really matters, it's what you do with them that should matter. Really, did Newton draw cute little presentations? Did Leonardo? Did anyone tell Darwin to go and put his evolution concept in a set of nice trendy boxes, arrows and other shapes of nightmares? Eric Rowdy, did he suffer wihout conceptualizing his travels in waterfall diagrams? Where did all the encyclopedists and plain sane people go that in order for people to be able to read and get some gist of results of some research, you have to make them look stunning?

Of course, I'm just bitching and my issues have nothing to do with this book and all things to do with this world we can't help living in: it's stupid and keeps paying extreme attention to stuff that doesn't matter. As for the book, it's very useful, of course!

[Jari Pirhonen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good tips how to show data tables and graphs.

[Calvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly good book for data professionals to avoid the common mistakes in visualizing data.

[Vikas · Rating 5 out of 5]

insightful (with practical examples ) for someone who has to get his message across using data!

[Leonard Strahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of this is pretty self-explanatory, but there is a summary of rules that you can use as a check-list when visualizing your own data.

[Em · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is really straightforward and sensible. The content is laid out logically and there's no waffle. I recommend this book to anyone who produces text, tables or charts.