Stata Users of Earth: make your graphs reader friendly. Here is a thread with three easy steps.
First, here's a graph to start. This figure describes the entry of women into medicine. The numbers come from the 2011 Digest of Education Statistics, Table 294. 
The first thing to notice is how much work the legend requires of readers. They have to go back and forth from the data points to the legend to figure out what's going on.
Step 1: labels over legends. This is easy to do in Stata. (You could also add labels with a mouse rather than in the code.) Either way, labels are more reader friendly than legends.
Step 2: make all text horizontal. It should go without saying that horizontal text is easier to read than vertical text.
Step 3: eliminate unnecessary ink. Don't waste your referees' toner. Graphs generally look better with less "chart junk." I also changed the font. (Why are you letting some intern at Stata Corp. choose your font?)
This final figure is certainly not perfect, but it's easier for readers to interpret than the first one. While that looks like a lot of code, once you have a reliable template, creating reader-friendly figures is just a matter of copying and pasting.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
