Directed reading: Data visualization
Taught: F23
Graduate
Overview
The goal of this directed reading is to get better at data visualization. We will:
- Read books on effective data visualization
- Practice making good data visualization in R
- Meet on Mondays at 9am in my office to discuss
Format
Every week you will:
- Read about data visualization
- Complete visualization tasks in Quarto notebooks (ahead of our meeting)
- Meet with me for 60ish minutes to discuss / present
What you will need
- The books below
- R and RStudio installed and updated to latest version
- Git installed and a Github account
Books
- Alberto Cairo The Truthful Art: Data, Charts, and Maps for Communication (New Riders, 2016). (I have a copy)
- Claus O. Wilke Fundamentals of Data Visualization: A Primer on Making Informative and Compelling Figures (O’Reilly Media, 2019). (free online)
- Kieran Healy Data Visualization: A Practical Introduction (Princeton University Press, 2018). (free online)
Deliverables
- Each week you will turn in a Quarto notebook with your notes / visualizations
- A final code-thru analysis of a dataset from here (or whatever else you want): Full Archive
Schedule
Week 1 – Oct 2 : Orientation
Reading:
- Ch1 in Healy, Data Visualization.
Tasks:
- Make sure everything is installed and you access to all the materials
Week 2 – Oct 9 : Grammar of graphics
Reading:
- Ch 2 in Wilke, Fundamentals of Data Visualization.
- Ch 5 in Cairo, The Truthful Art.
- Ch 3 in Healy, Data Visualization.
Tasks:
- make a plot that uses the x-axis, y-axis, and at least two other aesthetics, axis labels, title, and a theme
- make the plot painfully slowly, iterating through each addition
Week 3 – Oct 16 : Amounts and proportions
Reading:
- Ch 6, 10, 11 in Wilke, Fundamentals of Data Visualization.
Tasks:
- make a barplot, stacked barplot, heat map, nested area plot
Week 4 – Oct 23 : Distributions
- Ch 7, 9 in Wilke, Fundamentals of Data Visualization.
- Raincloud plots
Week 5 – Oct 30 : Relationships
- Ch 12 in Wilke, Fundamentals of Data Visualization.
- Ch 13 in Wilke, Fundamentals of Data Visualization.
Week 6 – Nov 6 : Model output
- Ch 6 in Healy, Data Visualization.
Week 7 – Nov 13 : Annotations
- Ch 17, 18, 22 in Wilke, Fundamentals of Data Visualization.
- Ch 5 in Healy, Data Visualization.
Week 8 – Nov 20 : Maps
- Ch 7 in Healy, Data Visualization.
- Ch 15 in Wilke, Fundamentals of Data Visualization.
- Why all the world maps are wrong
Week 9 – Nov 27 : Networks
Skim these:
Week 10 – Dec 4 : Themes, color
- Ch 4, 19, 22 in Wilke, Fundamentals of Data Visualization.
- Ch 8 in Healy, Data Visualization.