Thread by @Artifexx

Tired of the same old bar graphs and line plots, #ScienceTwitter?

Here are 5 lesser-known but powerful graphical methods for visualizing your next publication.

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1 – SANKEY DIAGRAM

Great for displaying dynamic processes or flows in a graph.

Example: Flow of immigrants and emigrants to and from a country.

The favourite diagram of marketers optimizing conversion rates of their customers.

2 – TERNARY DIAGRAM

Measured 3 components of something and they sum up to a constant (e.g. 100%)?

Then display this three dimensional data in a two dimensional triangle, without loosing any information.

Example: Soil Composition or relative sources of Income

3 – VIOLIN PLOT

Replace boring box plots with sexy violins.

Box plots don't show the distribution of your data.

Especially multiple peaks are easily visible with a violin but hidden by a box plot.

4 – SPIDER CHART

One of the few graphs correctly representing high dimensional (3 or more) data.

But it can only display a few points at a time.

Alternative uses are to display periodical data, like average temperature across months.

5 – CHORD DIAGRAM

It shines when you need to display (numerical) relations within a group or between multiple groups.

But: Add too much data and it becomes an impressively looking mess.
(Yes, biologists, I am talking to you and your beloved protein interaction networks)

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