Authoring a PhD Thesis How to Plan, Draft, Write and Finish a Doctoral Dissertation by Patrick Dunleavy

HANDLING ATTENTION POINTS◆ 173

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Index of potato production (1997 = 100)^1997

100 110 120 121

(^135140122)
1998 1999
Year
2000 2001 2002 2003
0
Figure 7.1 Eight main types of chart (and when to
use them)
(a) Vertical bar chart
A (hypothetical) index of US potato production, 1997–2003
Use a vertical bar chart when:

• you have simple over-time data that are not really
  continuous, but cover discrete time-periods;


• you have other appropriate comparative data where
  the labels for each bar are short enough to fit
  underneath it.

Don’t use vertical bar charts if:

• the bars in the chart have long data labels, especially
  not where you would need to use numbers or a key for
  labels to fit anything in the column labels.

Points to watch:

• put numbers inside columns, not on top of them;


• if data is not chronological or in categories with a
  fixed order, aim to achieve a numerical progression.