Tue Feb  9 14:16:37 2016

-- reviews seem less useful this time -- why?
   * what can we do to improve the writing/review cycle (2 more times?)

-- talk about real peer reviews next time

-- talk about math proofs next week

Notes on discussion of graphs and tables articles

Taylor:

* chartjunk graphs are mostly trying to do too much
  - truncated axes
  - extra decoration
  
* reproducible research (and graphs)
  - certainly I keep a text file in emacs!  make functions to
    generalize a graph beyond the current data set, etc...

  - how much is it worth going beyond ggplot2?

Amanda

* specific decoration or coloring can be useful
  - distiction between "research/exploratory" graphs and "production"
    graphs
      - I feel like ggplot2 is good if you really know what you
        want. but not a great exploratory tool.  need lower-level
        primitives for that...

  - text labelling is hardly ever "automatic" (though R helps with
    some point-labelling functions...)

* NPR and FB status graphs "good".  Also look at NH primary graph...
  - critiques?  kudos?

Maria

* how do you reference figures from a text?  Not really part of the
  sentence... (say something about them and use the label as a noun)

* how to decide to put fig in text, appx or not at all?
  (is it central to the argumetn -- artificiality of school writing
  tasks)

* break in reader concentration to look at figure

Shannon

* jewels! (some styles put a figure that tells the story of the
  article ON THE FIRTS PAGE)

* good graphs help, bad graphs don't hurt

* disagree with "many numbers" if not comprehensible or overloads wm.

* "For the second article, I think it's a little ironic that the
  website looks a bit dated..."  --- so bad/outdated design can
  distract from the message!

Qining

* Key takeaway: the figure or table is itself a small self-contained
  article -- great insight!!

* the figures are part of the storyline and deserve careful thought --
  not only in the construiction of the figure/table but also how it
  contributes to and is integrated in the story

* as simple as possible but no simpler

Sam

* ˇ°Clear, detailed, and thorough labeling should be used to defeat
  graphical distortion and ambiguity.ˇ± - Tufte

  - especially important in talks! (audience can't cross reference -
    it all has to be there, or audience mind wanders to figuring out
    what it is...)

Francesca

* anatomy of a table

* adapting figs and tables for different formats (talks, papers,
  posters) and audiences -- really good points!

* who is your audience -- think of it again and again and again for
  every part of document

Brendan

* a figure/table should mean something (as with all writing)

* shaping to make a point vs distorting or encouraging
  misinterpretation
    -- fig on p 21 of ppt


Beau

* "provoke thought about the subject at hand."

* blog post: getting people who see the graphic to think about the
  data, without even noticing how the graphic was conveying that
  information.

  - like Gopen and Swan, where the goal of technical writing is to
    essentially make the writing disappear, so that the reader is only
    left remembering the ideas you wanted to convey.

* princ 4 "many numbers" ick, and kind of at odds with Gopen and Swan
  one point (or unity) per unit of writing

Purvasha

*  fourth point, "present many numbers in a small place" will
   complicate the figure too much in a paper.

* Points 6 and 7, "Encourage eyes to compare data" and "Reveal data at
  several levels of detail" are also not such good ideas in either a
  paper or a presentation. Point 6 is a good idea if the targeted
  audience has a lot of time to play around with the figure. Similarly
  point 7 also requires the reader to pay a lot of attention to the
  figure. The rest of the points seem reasonably helpful.

  - distinction between a data graph and a scientific illustration

Josue

* I often worry about two types of figures. 1) concise and clear
  figures for papers, more traditional, 2) detailed figures for
  presentations, more creative. There is a lot of freedom in the
  second type. So I enjoyed reading through the 1st link (tufte, data
  visualization principles).

* Furthermore, I would like to hear people's ideas about: 1) adjusting
  the level of detail given in a figure. 2) Figures and equations are
  the main ways we summarize results. What are some ways in which we
  can motivate our work thinking of these as the end goal?

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