Directed reading: Data visualization

Taught: F23

Graduate
Author

Juan Tellez

Published

September 25, 2023

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:

  1. Read about data visualization
  2. Complete visualization tasks in Quarto notebooks (ahead of our meeting)
  3. 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

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

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.