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

174 ◆AUTHORING A PHD

01020

Respondents nominating issue in top three issues (%)

30 40 50 60

57

55

37

21

12

6

Economy/

unemployment

Health care

Education

Issue

Others

Immigration/race

relations

Defence/foreign

affairs

(b) Horizontal bar chart

British voters’ views of the most important political issues,
September 2001 (hypothetical)

Use a horizontal bar chart whenever:

• you have comparative data where the labels for each
  bar are too long to fit underneath columns easily.

Don’t use horizontal bar charts if:

• readers will expect to see columns (e.g. for over-time
  data).

Points to watch:

• put numbers inside columns, not outside their
  right-end;


• aim to achieve a numerical progression in almost all
  cases (unless data is in categories with a fixed order or
  is chronological).