Q. 2.166
Question
America's Melting Pot. The U.S. Census Bureau publishes data on the population of the United States by race and Hispanic origin in American Community Survey. From that document, we constructed the following bar chart. Note that people who are Hispanic may be of any race, and people in each race group may be either Hispanic or not Hispanic.
a. Explain why a break is shown in the first bar.
b. Why was the graph constructed with a broken bar?
c. Is this graph potentially misleading? Explain your answer.
Step-by-Step Solution
Verified(a) The bar is truncated.
(b) Because the bar for White people was substantially larger than the bar for other races, the graph was produced with broken bars.
(c) Yes, the graph is potentially misleading.
The given information is
The axis of a truncated graph does not begin at . These graphs might provide the impression of significant change when there is actually very little. While shortened graphs can be useful for overdrawing differences or saving space, they are frequently avoided.
The bar is truncated.
The break is shown in the first bar because the first bar has not been completely drawn.
In other words, the bar was truncated the break represents the truncation.
The given data is
On a chart, an axis break is a break in the continuity of numbers on either the or axis. It's also known as a graph break or a scale break, and it appears as a wavy line or diagonal line on the axis and on the bars displayed on that axis on the chart.
Because the bar for White people was substantially larger than the bar for other races, the graph was produced with broken bars.
The given information
The graph is potentially misleading because the first bar appears to be double or triple the size of the other bars., while in actuality the difference is much larger.