Types of visualization
This visualization is a dot plot and illustrates the age of authors (Y-axis) and the year of publication (x-axis). This type of visualization is highly versatile and can be used in many instances, as it can show multiple points on each axis without interference.
The above graph allows the reader to visualize the age of writers in a given year. An important advantage to using a dot plot is that it allows to display individual samples of information and average lines for each category which allows for simple yet extensive comprehension of the data. In this case the categories are split into male and female by colors. (Information visualization – Figure 6.10 Graphic variables (JD), page 97,98)
One interesting detail the illustration shows is the increase in the maximum age of writers at the date of their titles publication. In 1993 it the oldest author was just under 80 years old, fast forward to 2011 and the maximum age rises to just under 90 years old. Another very useful addition to this visualization are the gendered median lines which also show that recently male authors (blue line) publish at a higher age compared to female authors (red line). It is also important to note that the first female author recorded in this dataset was in 1993.
What this graph is not showing the viewer is information about the publication itself; The data is focused on the author and not the title. This could misrepresent data as some publications may have taken longer to write and are therefore published at a later age or the other way around.