The Pie Chart: A Piece of Cake

Abstract

between the tables, and found the most convincing way was t o divide the table into quarters and count the ticks in each quarter ( Figure 4). The original hypothesis that the weeds on the lawn were distributed at random was rejected on the evidence that was best summarised in Figure 4. Since it is a rule of science that any non-random distribution has some underlying cause, it follows that there are reasons why the weeds are where they are, and that is something which the pupils could pursue.Meanwhile, sixth formers (grade I I ) could examine why the list needs to be randomised before being duplicated and analyse the results more formally, reducing the raw data straight away to a table and testing the Null Hypothesis with the Chisquared test. If the weeds are distributed at random then half the ticks are to be expected on each side of a line that separates columns I to 6 from columns 7 to 12, and indeed this is the case for the results obtained from the random number table (Figure 4b). However, the results obtained from the weeds on the lawn give a Chisquared value of 6.1 (Figure 4a) and this is significant at the 0.05 level. The Null Hypothesis is rejected. The weeds on the lawn are not distributed at random. ReferencesKtiotc. your furf weecis, Sutton's Seeds. Torquny. D. G. Hessayon, Be your owti /own r.uperr.

The Humble Pie – Half‐Baked or Well Done?

“…Goldstone (1982) also suggests placing the sectors in order of size to help the reader to identify quickly the largest and smallest. In Excel the sorting must be done by the user and is not an option provided within the Chart Wizard.…”

The Humble Pie – Half-Baked or Well Done?

“…An 'Other' category should be used to amalgamate categories that are insignificant either because of their size or because they are not relevant to the message of the chart. Goldstone (1982) also suggests placing the sectors in order of size to help the reader to identify quickly the largest and smallest. In Excel the sorting must be done by the user and is not an option provided within the Chart Wizard.…”

“…As we will show, the process of producing pie charts in Excel can be a challenging experience and is not exactly 'a piece of cake' (Goldstone 1982). It requires thinking skills and common sense, as well as numeracy.…”

“…In contrast, Reese (1997) argues that 'although there are many awful and hilarious examples in publications of all sorts, there are plenty that carry a sensible message and make a powerful point'. Goldstone (1982) goes further, suggesting that the pie chart is 'perhaps the friendliest face in most statistics books'.…”