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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Use SCRUM - a scheduling technique most companies use. It's perfect for academics.
Details in text below:
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Summary:
1. Create a backlog of tasks and assign a difficulty to each (1,2,4,8 for the number of hours it takes to complete)
2. Plan meetings and seminars etc as they also take time.
3. Before starting your week distribute the tasks from the backlog to the days of the week. Don't plan more than 8hr of work a day (or less if you have other commitments).
4. During the week: Check off what you have completed (and how long it took you).
5. At the end of the week: Understand what you got done and what you didn't.
Understand that if you didn't get everything done it is a planning error. It does not mean you need to work harder/more (this is just recipe for burnout and I have been there myself). It just means you need to plan better. Efficiency comes in relaxation.
Every day you manage to accomplish what you planned you will feel great about yourself.
6. Next week you can copy and paste the open tasks to the next week and start the process again. Some people prefer to have a bi-weekly instead.
What tools can you use?
There are dozens of tools for kanban boards. The simplest one is of course Trello.