Visualizing Data

email: cadolph[at]u.washington.edu

Homepage of author: http://www.csss.washington.edu/People/Adolph.shtml

Title of course: Visualizing Data

Aimed at what category of students: Students of Social Science

Objectives of the course:

Visual displays are an integral part of most social science presentations, and can make or break a paper. Good visuals also help researchers uncover patterns and relationships they would otherwise miss. Nevertheless, social scientists seldom put as much care into designing visual displays as they devote to crafting effective prose. In contrast, this course takes the design of graphics and tables seriously, and explores a variety of visual techniques for exploring data and summarizing statistical results.

List topics of course:

• Principles and psychology of effective visualization
• Examples from the social sciences
• Novel visual displays
• Implementation of recommended techniques in graphics and statistics packages