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5 Ways Writers Use Misleading Graphs To Manipulate You [INFOGRAPHIC]
This graph is titled “Most Players Drafted in the First Round”. It does not specify the range of years, sport, or league to which the data refers. Any of these omissions on their own ruin the usefulness of the graph. Is this referring to football players? Basketball? Baseball? Are the players male or female? The data hasn’t been assigned a time frame, so I can’t infer any significant trend. For example, if the data dates back to the 1970s, it could be that USC used to have many players drafted, but hasn’t in recent years. Another factor to consider is the number of teams in the league, which impacts the number of choices in the first round of a given year’s draft. For example, the NFL has 32 teams. If Miami has had 60 players drafted in the first round since 2010, that would be 60/320, or 6 per year. However, if the data reflect the NFL’s “Super Bowl Era”, then the school has only had players chosen with 60/1,760 picks (actually a little less because the NFL hasn’t always had 32 teams, but you get the idea). Finally, the intervals on the graph aren’t specific enough. I know that Ohio State has had between 60 and 80 players drafted in the first round, but even if the graph is drawn exactly to scale, I can’t precisely tell how many players the bar represents.
The reading illustrates how graphs can be distorted so that they visually appear to convey data differently than it might sound when read aloud. This reminds me of when journalists will take a quote out of context and omit important information that clarifies a speaker’s point. In this day and age, we are so accustomed to taking in information in tiny chunks (tweets, notifications, short videos). The less information is present, the easier it is to manipulate an audience. We often unknowingly choose convenience and easily processed bits of data in favor of seeing the complete picture.
This is a great example Will! I feel like people use this kind of graph frequently to try and convince the public of something misleading. The numbers presented in the chart are seemingly vague to distort the significance of them, which would make sense when you see what kind of image the data is trying to paint. Clearly USC is using this graph in attempts to narrate a story of high success rates among their athletes, but doesn’t actually provide any credible information. It’s just performative.
This a great example. These practices are so misleading especially for high school students that are being recruited. Universities always try to sell themselves as the best option for star high school athletes. With most of these athletes wanting to hopefully go pro in the future, graphs like these can potentially affect their future by manipulating them to attend a school that may not be the best fit for them.
Nice example! We see this used too often in the world because everyone is trying to compete for the best workers, students, and in this case, athletes. If you were to chuck a “stats from Statistic.com” at the bottom, then the majority of the people reading the graph would actually believe it.