Humanities Homework Help

University of Central Florida Cybersecurity Trends and Statistics in 2021 Infographic

PROJECT

Project Goals

Create appropriate visuals from numeric data

Analyze visuals to support a specific point or argument

Apply principles of design to create a visually appealing, readable document

Write using a professional style that emphasizes clarity, concision, and accuracy.

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What Will You Produce?

Be sure to review the project instructions thoroughly before submitting your work…
By the end of Project 2 I’m expecting to see a 1-2 page (1 page front and back) visually attractive report featuring three data visualizations you have created. The data sets needed to make these visualizations has been given to you in the project instructions below. Your visual report should also have a clear written argument of your own, one that uses your three data visualizations as pieces of evidence to make a larger point. The balance of textual and visual information is a tough one for a short report like this, but please make sure all information is clear and easy to read/understand.
Description
This project asks you to engage with data, present data for a specific audience (your classmates), and practice making effective data visualizations. The project focuses on

the fair, accurate, and ethical use of data

the conventions of writing with numbers and data

how to integrate figures into a document

how to design effective visualizations.

As you will learn in completing this project, numbers don’t speak for themselves, and writing with data requires critical and rhetorical thought, as well as visual design skills.

In working on this project, you will engage with different types of visuals, as well as the conventions of writing with data and numbers. To achieve these goals, you will select one of the data sets listed below. After reviewing the data set you select, you will decide on a point you want to make using the data in your data set. Then, since you can’t visualize all the data in your data set, you will make decisions about which data to visualize. Using the data you have selected, you will create three data visualizations help you make your point. Then you will write about and analyze that data in a brief visual report. The final visual report you create will include the three visuals you have made, and the supporting text necessary to explain the data you have visualized and make your point.

In addition to the visual report, you also will create a second deliverable. You will compose a reflective memo that explains your choices and goals, and how the visual report deliverable achieves them.

Use your the textbook chapter on Visual Design to help you design and write about your visuals. Additionally, you may wish to use this Periodic Table of Visualization Methods (Links to an external site.) to explore various types and uses of visuals or consult this article from Tableu: What is a Data Visualization? (Links to an external site.)

Data visualizations bring a number of benefits to any professional document, even short ones:

Though they have become extremely easy to make, people in the workplace still tend to be impressed by the extra effort and thoughtful presentation implicit in making a visualization.

Data visualizations also help to make the work of digesting and interpreting data more efficient by displaying trends or illustrating the significance of specific information without poring over page after page of numbers.

Because of this efficiency, visual elements are also better at communicating certain ideas more quickly than words or tabular data. Something that may take many sentences to communicate, a sudden drop in the efficiency of a process, or a surge in sales among a certain demographic, are instantly recognizable as spikes or dips along the X axis of a line graph.

As previously mentioned, numbers don’t speak for themselves. Integrating visuals comes with all the benefits listed above, but using visuals also comes with responsibility to use visuals fairly and justly. Visuals reduce people to numbers, to data, and then, by making a visual using some data but not other data, you make some people more significant than others. Your visuals represent a choice to emphasize some facts, and, in so doing, deemphasize others. Your visuals must be complete and accurate, but also fair and just. When you create your visuals, you should start with questions such as, “Am I representing the data accurately?” and also, “Am I representing the data fully and in a way that does no harm to certain groups?”

In your visual report, you will create three visualizations and integrate them into your report, providing an introduction to the topic and analysis of the data you include to make a point about the topic using your data.

Assignment

For this project, you will select a data set from the ones listed below and create a short informational report that includes at least three data visualizations that you create. In your visuals, you will communicate the data you select from your data set in a form that maximizes the impact of the data. Your report should be designed for an audience of your classmates and an informative purpose.

To create your visualizations and informational report, select one of the following data sets:

Want to find a data set of your own? Check out the RCMD (Links to an external site.)

Once you have selected a data set, spend some time with the data. Identify the trends that jump out at you as most significant. Your audience is your classmates, so think about what you want them to know and how best to visualize the data for them. You will not be able to visualize or discuss all the data in your data set. Your job is to select and visualize the data that is most relevant to your audience and the point you are making.

EXERCISE

Once you have selected the data set you want to work with and decided on a point you want to make using that data, submit the following:

A brief description of your data set and some of its major findings

Three specific data points you found interesting from your set

A description of the relationship between these data points and what they might mean for certain audiences

A argument for why your audience of fellow college students should find this data interesting/important

Next steps: Project 2

After submitting this information, you can begin to design your three data visualizations for Project 2. Just like you are practicing using data points as evidence for an argument in this assignment, Project 2 asks you to use more visually appealing graphics for this purpose in the context of a short report.

Remember: your data visualizations are a major component of the project, but they must support and be supported by professional, concise, body text. Think about the data visualizations as the three major points that you want someone to remember from your short report–they are such important points that you added color and symbols and all sorts of eye-catching goodness to them to make sure everyone sees.

To help you with some of that designy stuff, I’m going to dump a bunch of short videos and resources here for you to refer back to as you continue to work on Project 2.