"All graphics by definition employ metaphors, but some are more metaphorical than others. Sometimes the metaphor escapes from its graphical cage, takes on a life of its own and provides exciting deception opportunities." (Nicholas Strange, "Smoke and Mirrors: How to bend facts and figures to your advantage", 2007)
"Arbitrary category sequence and misplaced pie chart emphasis lead to general confusion and weaken messages. Although this can be used for quite deliberate and targeted deceit, manipulation of the category axis only really comes into its own with techniques that bend the relationship between the data and the optics in a more calculated way. Many of these techniques are just twins of similar ruses on the value axis. but are none the less powerful for that." (Nicholas Strange, "Smoke and Mirrors: How to bend facts and figures to your advantage", 2007)
"Category definition and selection in the pre-graphical phase of communication offer varied manipulation opportunities. But once we get to designing the chart itself category distortion opportunities are even more attractive." (Nicholas Strange, "Smoke and Mirrors: How to bend facts and figures to your advantage", 2007)
"Deceit through cumulation is a bit of a golden Oldie, but still frequently used in some highly respectable publications." (Nicholas Strange, "Smoke and Mirrors: How to bend facts and figures to your advantage", 2007)
"If you're really desperate to find some sort of correlation to add respectability to an otherwise unimpressive train of thought, you can always turn to the old trick of using two variables that are separated only by a logical or mathematical constant. Sounds complicated? So much the better." (Nicholas Strange, "Smoke and Mirrors: How to bend facts and figures to your advantage", 2007)
"If you want to hide data, try putting it into a larger group and then use the average of the group for the chart. The basis of the deceit is the endearingly innocent assumption on the part of your readers that you have been scrupulous in using a representative average: one from which individual values do not deviate all that much. In scientific or statistical circles, where audiences tend to take less on trust, the 'quality' of the average (in terms of the scatter of the underlying individual figures) is described by the standard deviation, although this figure is itself an average." (Nicholas Strange, "Smoke and Mirrors: How to bend facts and figures to your advantage", 2007)
"Radar charts are almost always the result either of space-saving attempts or of doubtful theories about the desirability of 'symmetrical' plots, in which scores on all dimensions are similar, so giving an approximation to a circle. Their scales offer unlimited scope for manipulation in achieving this lunatic ambition." (Nicholas Strange, "Smoke and Mirrors: How to bend facts and figures to your advantage", 2007)
"The donut, its spelling betrays its origins, is nearly always more deceit friendly than the pie, despite being modelled on a life-saving ring. This is because the hole destroys the second most important value- defining element, by hiding the slice angles in the middle." (Nicholas Strange, "Smoke and Mirrors: How to bend facts and figures to your advantage", 2007)
"The fact that a statement is true doesn't necessarily mean that the argument upon which is based or the chart of which it forms the action title is itself sound." (Nicholas Strange, "Smoke and Mirrors: How to bend facts and figures to your advantage", 2007)
"There are some chart types that occasionally appear in print but are so bad that they serve neither honesty nor deceit. Among these monuments to human ingenuity at the expense of common sense are the concentric donut and overlapping segments. The concentric donut is really just a bar or column chart bent back on itself to save space. However as anyone who has ever watched a two or four hundred metre race will know, to make sense of the order of arrival at the tape you have to stagger the start to take account of the bend in the track. Blithely ignoring this problem, the concentric donut uses to diminish the difference between the inner and the outer absolute values by anything up to 2.5 times." (Nicholas Strange, "Smoke and Mirrors: How to bend facts and figures to your advantage", 2007)
"We need [graphic] techniques because figures do not speak for them. selves. Numbers alone seldom make a convincing case or polish their author's image - the twin goals of that other great mind bender, rhetoric. While rhetoric deals in qualitative argument, its quantitative equivalent is graphics. As rhetoric has declined in popularity, so graphics have risen along with our acceptance of quantitative arguments. In graphics, figures finally find their own means of expression." (Nicholas Strange, "Smoke and Mirrors: How to bend facts and figures to your advantage", 2007)
"We tend automatically to think of all the categories represented on the horizontal axis of a column Chart as being equally important. They vary of course on the value axis. Otherwise, there would be little point in the chart, but there is somehow this feeling that they are in other respects similar members of a group. This convention can be put to good use to manipulate the message of the most boring bar or column chart." (Nicholas Strange, "Smoke and Mirrors: How to bend facts and figures to your advantage", 2007)
"What distinguishes data tables from graphics is explicit comparison and the data selection that this requires. While a data table obviously also selects information, this selection is less focused than a chart's on a particular comparison. To the extent that some figures in a table are visually emphasised. say in colour or size and style of print. the table is well on its way to becoming a chart. If you're making no comparisons - because you have no particular message and so need no selection (in other words, if you are simply providing a database, number quarry or recycling facility) - tables are easier to use than charts." (Nicholas Strange, "Smoke and Mirrors: How to bend facts and figures to your advantage", 2007)
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