16 – Communicating Results

Why Should I Care?

The type of data, and your disciplinary focus, will determine the medium you will use to report the data.

                                                                                                Used for (examples)

Tables & Graphs (p. 254)

Frequency Table                                                            Opinion polls

Cross-Tabulation Table                                                               Sociology data, subgroups

Scattergram                                                                               Correlation

Pie Graph                                                                                 Shares

Bar Graph                                                                                 Shares

Line Graph                                                                               Historical Trend

Social Geography Maps

Coloured Territory Maps                                                Comparing countries

Pin-Point Density Maps                                                              With postal code                                   

3-D Location Maps                                                                    Intensity, with pin-point location

Flow Charts

Production Flow Charts                                                              Identifying inputs and outputs

Demographic Flow Charts                                                          Explaining immigration

“Follow the Money” Charts                                                        Fraud Investigation

Social Linkages “Maps”

CEO Contacts                                                                           Explaining business influence

Political Contacts                                                                       Explaining political influence

Socio-cultural Contacts                                                               Explaining cultural integration/isolation

Descriptive Text

Journal Articles and Conferences                                                 Communicating results from latest study

Monographs                                                                              Centering theory around recent literature

News and Blogs                                                                         Debate current events to broad audience

Documentaries                                                                          Explain theory to broad audience

Synthesis Tables

 

Theory Synthesis                     Summarizes the existing theories, approaches, differences and validity.

Prior Results Synthesis             Summarizes the prior literature, methods, samples and results.