This is Professor Rogers.
In this presentation we examine the basics
of making graphs for categorical descriptive
statistics.
I move quickly through this material.
I am not providing comprehensive instructions
about features in Word and Word graphic capabilities,
which can be found elsewhere on the Internet.
I am only focused on how to adapt that information
to making graphs within an APA-style paper.
Some software packages have graphics capabilities
within them.
The graphics package within SPSS is especially
well known.
However, these packages are quite complicated
and given the number of times that most individuals
would make graphs, using Word for graphs of
categorical descriptive statistics is a better
use of most people’s time.
As an example, we will be using the frequency
table of the number of states by region.
We have to have this table in our possession
to make our graph.
Like tables, graphs and figures in APA style
get their own page at the end of the document.
This page can be separated from the rest of
the paper, including preceding tables, using
a Section Break.
There are two different formats for the page.
The APA manual itself puts the title and description
of figures below the figure.
The descriptive word, such as Graph, Figure,
or Chart, is in italics, and on the same line
is a title in regular font.
Only the first word and major words of the
title are capitalized.
Authors are permitted to provide an extended
discussion of the figure in the space to follow.
An alternative format, often acceptable to
many editors, puts the title above the graph
in a manner similar to a table.
However, there is only one line, not three
as in a table.
This line separates the title from the graph.
Students in my classes are free to use either
format.
Setting up a graph is driven by menus in Word.
Under the Insert tab in the top menu, select
Chart in the ribbon, and we get the Insert
Chart command box with pictures of templates
for various figures.
For our example, we will start with the column
chart in the upper left-hand corner of the
Insert Chart box.
What opens is an Excel spreadsheet with a
template for entering data.
What we see is in the picture on the left
of the screen.
The blue box highlights where the data for
the chart is located, and can be expanded
and contracted based on the size of the data
we type in.
We then enter that data for which we want
the visual representation.
For our example, I am going to make a graph
of the percent distribution of states by region.
The data from the SPSS output are entered
manually into the spreadsheet.
The results are seen in the picture on the
right of the screen.
Right click on the spreadsheet to close it,
and then look at the Word document.
What we see is a chart already assembled for
us.
There is already a good chart here, but there
are still some fine points to get it properly
formatted for our APA-style document.
Notice that Chart Tools are now added to our
menu whenever we highlight our chart.
First, we size the graph on the page.
Sizing is done by pulling on the edges of
the graph.
At the top of our chart is a title placed
on the chart by default.
We already have a chart title in the Word
document, so we highlight the edge of the
title box to see the box, and then delete
the title box.
On the right there is a legend.
When we have only one variable, the legend
adds nothing to the chart, so we highlight
the legend box and delete it the same way
we removed the title.
Next, we add axis titles.
The command can be found in the ribbon under
Layout.
Choose the Axis Titles command from the menu.
There could be some confusion because there
is also an Axes command, but we want Axis
Titles.
Here we add two titles—one for the vertical
axis and one for the horizontal.
For a vertical axis I prefer the Rotated title.
Here’s the result after I add the axis titles.
You see Region labeling the horizontal axis
and % of States on the vertical one.
You notice that there are small tick marks
on the horizontal axis.
Many people today ignore these tick marks,
but technically they imply that the data are
numeric.
To be correct, we must remove them.
Highlight the horizontal axis with your cursor,
and right click on the bottom of the axis.
You should get a menu that includes the Format
Axis command on the bottom.
You might not get this menu the first couple
of times you try—there are two different
menus that are brought up by right clicking
on the axis, so sometimes I find I have to
try several times before I get the one I want.
Here’s the dialog box for the Format Axis
command.
In the middle of the box are the settings
controlling tick marks.
Set them all to none and the tick marks disappear
completely.
An optional change is the addition of Data
Labels.
I like this option because it adds more information
to the chart.
The Data Labels command can be found on ribbon
under the Layout tab.
I personally prefer the Outside End option,
which puts the data labels above the bars.
If I put the data labels on the bar, these
are often not legible if the document is printed
out on a black-and-white printer.
I make three final adjustments to get my finished
graph.
First, I remove the border from the chart.
By right clicking on the chart, I get a menu
that includes the Format Chart Area command,
and I remove the Border by turning the Border
Color off.
The value 33 for South crossed a grid line.
I right clicked on the box with the data label
for South, and under Format Data Labels I
filled the box with white, which blocked out
the gridline near the number 33.
Finally, I left the chart and moved up my
title so it is closer to the chart.
My final graph is shown here.
Once a graph is made, I can easily change
the graph simply by right clicking on it and
selecting Change Chart Type.
Here I selected a pie chart.
The one alteration I had to make from the
original pie chart was to add a legend for
Region, because I could not tell which slice
of the pie was associated with each region
given the Data Label.
One caution should be made about pie charts.
On a computer, we see the slices in color,
but on a black-and-white or even a gray-toned
printer, some of the slices might be indistinguishable.
By right clicking on each slice of the pie,
we can play with the fill of the data-point
slices by color and pattern to get a pie chart
that should work on most non-color printers.
Graphs add a way to visualize the data.
We don’t see many graphs in journals because
they use a lot of space and sizing them is
complicated.
However, they provide us an alternative way
to display data outside a table when the situation
is appropriate.
