This Pass or Prepared? is brought to you, courtesy of the Social Science Research Institute Council, from their Workshop on Wednesday, June 14. The story of that workshop day will be up soon for you, but in the meantime, Nan Chico's Starters was so much fun I thought you'd like to try it.

We'll start with the first graph. The age groups (down the center) and the year are not visible at the moment because they are in yellow. To see the year and age groups, link on Starters until I can fix this one.) Dr. Chico has given us very little information. Our task is to figure out as much as we can about each graph or map presented. This graph is an animated gif. Notice that the graph changes shape for each year. You can stop the animation by pressing the STOP button on your browser. You can start the animation again by pressing the RELOAD button on your browser.

Based on your perusal of this graph, answer the following questions:

1. What is the first thing you notice about this graph?

   One Plausible Answer

   The graph is moving. In the social sciences a graph moving this way is probably showing a change over time. Notice that the year is changing. So this must be a graph of some variable changing over time.

2. Animation is not possible in a textbook. How could this effect be presented in hard copy?

   One Plausible Answer

   One way to represent this effect of change over time in hard copy, would be to use several graphs, showing the progression over years. We could pick the years that would best illustrate the changing patterns. For example, we could start the series with 1950 to show the pyramid effect. Then 1965 to show the growth in the variable graphed, the broadening of the base of the pyramid. Then 2000, to show the emerging rectangular form, then 2020 to show the clear rectangular shape, then 2050 to show the continuity of the pattern.

3. Which technique, Web or hardcopy, seems most effective to you in illustrating change over time?

   One Plausible Answer

   Each seems to have an advantage. The Web version enables you to see the change easily. The hardcopy version lets you study the effect more comfortably. I had a hard time stopping the animated gif at the year I wanted. It was almost like trying to catch a mouse. It reminded me of the Web banner advertisements that tell you to click on a moving object. Perhaps the animation could be slowed down a little. Perhaps controls to run the animation more slowly could be put on the screen.

4. Are the graph data symmetrical?

   One Plausible Answer

   At first glance, yes. But then, if you look more closely, the symmetrical effect changes over the years. The right side seems to have a higher value on the variable than the left side. What social science variable might vary like that? Perhaps gender. Males and females are about equally balanced in the population. Females are sometimes said to be 51% of the population. So we might imagine that the right side of the graph represents females, and the left side males. It would seem to make sense that age groups would vary in the frequency distribution of gender. In fact, females are said to live longer, and the graph is slightly imbalanced to the right, which we surmised might represent females.

5. If you had to write a paragraph of interpretation about this graph, what could you say?

   One Plausible Answer

   There is no title given, and the legend is not given. But it is clear that the graph represents changes over time, from 1950 to 2050. The vertical axis represents an unidentified variable that goes from 0-4 to 85+. That range would fit the age of a population. The horizontal axis represents an unidentified variable that goes from 0 to14 on both sides of the vertical axis.

   Looking at the year 2000, it would seem to fit the pattern of the "baby boomers" growing older. The 85+ group is growing larger. But, if this graph does represent the changing frequency distribution of the American population over the years 1950-2050, the distribution contradicts predictions that there will be an inverse pyramid pattern with the frequencies in older age categories exceeding the frequencies of the younger age categories. Instead, this graph seems to show that the age distribution takes on a rectangular shape.

   Nota bene: When I wrote this paragraph of interpretation yesterday, I neglected to mention the pattern in comparing the two sides of the graph. Notice that the graph is not completely symmetrical, and that the pattern of symmetry changes over the years. I didn't leave this piece out on purpose. I just forgot to mention it. This is why it is so important to edit your writing, especially a day or so later, so that you will notice what you have left out. Isn't it surprising how much you can tell without even knowing what precisely the graph is about?

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   Figurine by Rudiger Appel. Notice that you can see three effects in the animation. Either the Variation on the Kandinsky figurine appears to turn in a clockwise direction, or in a counterclockwise direction, or it appears to open and close. Can you see all three effects? Try. Fascinated? Link to Appel's site and then link to the background he provides. Scroll down until you find a link to background.

Copright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata, June 2000. "Fair Use" encouraged.