What are you trying to show with a graphic? As a guide, experts have identified seven types of relationships that writers often want to display.1
Each addresses different questions and narrows the choice of which charts or graphs may be better.
Greater detail and example graphics may be found at:
Eenie, Meenie, Minie, Moe: Selecting the Right Graph for Your Message
Below is a brief summary of the types with example questions.
| Type of Relationship | Types of Questions |
| Nominal Comparison | Which one is bigger? How much bigger? |
| Time Series | Is it changing over time? Is it going up or down Is it Steady or fluctuating? |
| Ranking | What is the order of preferences? Which one rank higher and lower? |
| Part-to-Whole | What share do we have? What percent of the whole is ours? |
| Deviation | Compared to our target, how do our results differ? How much difference is there? |
| Frequency Distribution | Are our results evenly or unevenly distributed across the country? Are they concentrated in some areas? |
| Correlation | Is there a relationship between our effort and results? Did our response make the desired changes? |
1. Few, Stephen (2004), Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten, Oakland, CA: Analytics Press; Zelazny, Gene (2001), Say It With Charts, New York: McGraw-Hill.