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

178 ◆AUTHORING A PHD

60

Respondents saying government is

doing a good job (%)

50

40

30

20

10

JJFMAM JASOND

Month of the year

Smoothed ‘good job’ % ‘Good job’

0

(f) Line graph

Proportion of the UK survey respondents seeing
their governments as doing a good job in 2001
(hypothetical)

Use a line graph chart whenever:

• you have continuous over-time data.

Don’t use line graph charts if:

• the data are over-time but are not really continuous;


• you have very few observations: in both these cases
  use a vertical bar chart.

Points to watch:

• if you have more than one line, make sure that they
  are each visible.