Jon Ptashnik
3-15-11
Description of the Graph
The graph shows the amount of trash we are making annually by showing three different years.
The reason this graph is misleading is because the trash cans enlarge dramatically over a short
period of time. For instance the width of the trash cans over the years gets wider and wider
making the graph in a sense misleading. Also we should take into account that the pictures are 3D which also can mislead our understanding of the picture. Overall graphs like this do not give
an accurate view to people because they are more drawn by the “large pictures” then by the
numbers.
Ways to improve the graph
As I explained above the graph was very misleading because of the size of the images. The
approach that I would take to making this graph not as much misleading, would be to make the
trash cans all the same width but change there height to still show the difference in the years. For
example in the graph above we see that the trash cans are all different sizes, this makes the
reader mislead but if all the trash cans where the same size ( for example 1980) and we only
changed their height, the graph would become more accurate.
Jon Ptashnik
3-15-11
The graph should have been represented like the graph below. In the graph I made it is not misleading
because you can see the height only changes not the width. In the end the major flaw in the graph
above makes you think that something is 4xmore when in reality it is maybe only 2x and the graph
below gives a good idea of what the graph should have looked like
That graph
looks a lot
better!