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Databases in Disguise

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Creating Charts and Maps

Although charts, graphs and maps do not look a database, they are visual representations of structured data. Many database packages also create charts, and many charting packages interact with data sets and databases.

Which Packages?

Chart Plugins

Plug-ins or utlities for creating charts from data can be found in:

Excel
Access (recent versions)
Statistical Packages
Star Office and Neo Office

Third party plug-ins are also available for Filemaker and other databases.

Mathematical Visualization (Mathematica/Mat Lab)

These programs support complex three-dimensional visualizations for data sets and formulas.

Mathematica
MatLab
Maple

Mapping / Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

These programs store sets of geographic coordinates and convert them to maps.

ESRI
Other GIS Programs

Why this is important

Charting and mapping utilities are important database tools which allow users to translate raw numbers into more easily unerstood visual representations of patterns and trends.

Chart from Data

Trudgill (1995) presents the following data about the deletion of word-final /r/ in Detroit African American speakers with speakers divided into categories for social class and gender. Numbers are in percentages with higher numbers representing higher numbers of standard forms.

**Percentage of Final /r/ in Detroit African American Speakers Across Gender and Class**
	Upper Middle Class	Lower Middle	Upper Middle	Lower Working
Female	90%	70%	44.2%	31.7%
Male	66.7%	52.5%	20%	25%

The numbers show that /r/ dropping becomes more common in lower classes (lower percentages of final /r/), but that women consistently preserve more /r/'s then men across social classes. The chart generated from that data shows these trends more clearly.

Bar Chart for Data Comparing Men vs. Women across Classes
Graph generated by Elizabeth Pyatt, Penn State

Data from: Turdgill, P.(1995) Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society, 3rd Edition. Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin Books.

Map from Data (GIS)

Maps are another way of showing demographic or envorinmantal data so that key trends and patterns emerge. The map below shows the percentage of non-white (minority) residents by Pennsylvania county. Students familiar with the state of Pennsylvania could ssee that rural counties tend to have lower percentages than urban areas do (Pittsburgh, Harrisburg and Philadelphia), but that counties bordering New Jersey and tend to have more minorities than those bordering Ohio.

PA Non-White Population by State. Rural countiess are 0-15%. Cties are higher.

The data used to compile this map comes from the U.S. Census and was originally compiled in tabular within in a database. A Geographic Information Systems (G.I.S.) program can be combined the data associated with each county with geographic coordinates to automatically draw maps showing the data.

A common program is ESRI, but other packages exist as well.

Teaching Ideas

Converting data into visual representations often help students understand data relations or patterns better than numbers alone.
Teaching students to create smple charts or maps helps them understand how data is converted into commonly used visual representations. In some cases, these can be done in graphics packages instead of specialized charting packages.
An important information literacy skill is being able to read charts and graphs and detect potential biases in them.