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Facebook Arab Users with concentration on gender percentage and population penetration.
Fan graphs are used to predict possible results based on past results or experiences. They are very similar to line graphs but unlike the latter, they extend on both sides of the central line.
The central line represents the possibility which is most likely and as the line fans out, the chance of the possibilities recurring lessens. Thus fan graphs are more technically challenging as far as creating them is concerned.
Fan graphs are often used in probability numerical. Apart from this, they are also used by economic or business organizations in order to foresee results and so on. Stock markets also use fan graphs extensively.
Fan graphs must be labeled carefully to ensure that the graph is easy to understand and unambiguous. They are used extensively in financial and monetary predictions including inflation.
The term was coined by the Bank of England in order to make matters of inflation more accessible to the general audience. Thus, fan graphs are extremely graphic and even an amateur can understand the technical implications of a fan graph even though they are difficult to create.
In case of hand drawn fan graphs, since the central line represent the greatest possibility, care should be taken to darken or shade it so that it is distinguished from the rest of the fan.
Example of a Fan Graph.
Sample Fan Graphs
Pie graphs are graphs which represent the data as slices or pieces of a rounded pie-shaped structure. Such a graph is vivid and easy to understand and thus, they have become widely used and applied. Pie graphs can be plotted like any other graphs and today, most computer programs create automatic pie graphs if the option in pre selected simply upon entering the relevant data.
Pie graphs are extremely easy to understand. Due to their graphic nature, slices of the pie graph, representing the various frequencies are accessible even to someone who is not acquainted with graphs as such. This is one of the reasons for its popularity.
The various parts of the pie can be shaded in different colors in order to lend even more clarity to the graph. The title of the graph must be clearly mentioned as must the two axes. All efforts must be made to make the pie graph are informative as possible, without making it clumsy or overcrowded.
There are many kinds of pie graphs which are in use today. They can even be three dimensional with the presence of a third axis. However, because of its accessibility and clear nature, often pie graphs are considered to be a little restrictive.
Example of a Pie Graph.
Sample Pie Graphs
Professionals usually make use of specialized or custom software when working in their given field, because most of the generic software available just doesn’t cut it. This is specially true in the scientific and mathematical professions, where there are no generic software to begin with. One such area where specialized software is needed is in plotting graphs of mathematical functions are any sort of data. Luckily, there is a lot of graph plotting software available, specially on the Linux and Unix platforms which are commonly used where heavy resource usage is needed without sacrificing stability and uptime.
Grace, which stands for GRaphing, Advanced Computation and Exploration of data, is a WYSIWYG program that lets users use the common point and click or drag and drop movements to create publication-quality graphs. It can also be scripted to be able to generate or acquire data without direct user intervention.
KmPlot is another graph plotting program that is more focused on creating graphs of mathematical functions. It features a powerful mathematical parser that can generate graphs based on an equation from the user. It also allows building multiple functions simultaneously and then combine them to form new functions.
One of the most powerful, and probably most difficult to use, is gnuplot. Unlike the previous two mentioned, gnuplot doesn’t have a graphical interface. It is a command-line program where the user types in the function and data. It is capable of generating output in a number of different formats, including LaTeX, which is a favorite when it comes to creating documents with complicated formulae. gnuplot’s power comes from its ability to be controlled using scripts and bindings with programming languages, making it possible to be used as the graphing engine of other easy to use graphing software, such as GNU Octave and Maxima.
Sample Graph Plotting Software
Businesses make use of a lot of graphs aside from the usual bar and pie charts that are generated from tables and spreadsheets. More than just fancy visual aids, these graphs and diagrams make ideas easier to digest and understand, compared to reading paragraphs and pages of explanations.
A flowchart, as the name implies, is a diagram that describes a flow or process. While commonly used in programming or computer-related environments, a flowchart can also be used to map out how a product is supposed to be made from start to finish, for example. It might also detail how certain protocols or processes should be followed.
An organizational chart is probably familiar to almost any business. This shows the structure and layout of an organization, detailing the relationship and relative ranks of different positions within the organization. “Org charts” may vary from simple boxes and lines to more complicated systems where different types of relationships are indicated by different kinds of lines.
Gantt charts are used to illustrate the schedule and flow of a project. Most commonly used in project management, these charts point out the start and target finish dates, breakdown of different tasks in the project, as well as dependencies and relationships of those different tasks. Project management charts such as these are employed in order to more effectively achieve the project goals within certain constraints such as time and budget.
There are many tools available to users for creating these diagrams. Probably the most popular ones come from the Microsoft Office’s productivity suite. Microsoft Excel, as well as Word, can be used to generate bar, line, or pie charts. Visio is tailored to the creation of more complex charts and diagrams, and even wireframe or prototypes for demonstrations. And finally, Microsoft Project is a popular choice for project management and producing Gantt charts.
Market share refers to the percentage of the total available market segment that is serviced by a company or group. In other words, market share represents a group’s strength in relation with other groups in the same market segment. This can be expressed in terms of a company’s revenues, sales, or users divided by the total number of revenues, sales, or users in that market segment. Since market share involves a lot of figures and data probably spread over a wide geographical area, some amount of professional market research is usually commissioned in order to produce the needed information.
Market graphs present these figures in a visually appealing and easy to digest manner. A list or table would usually require more scrutiny and analysis of the figures in order to give an overall view of the market segment, while a simple graph can more easily give a bird’s eye-view. For this reason, pie charts are commonly used to express market share, as this type of chart, by nature, shows data in relation to the whole, which is exactly what a market share graph should show.
Creating market graphs is easy using any popular spreadsheet application, like Microsoft Excel, Google Spreadsheet, or OpenOffice.org Calc. Only two columns are necessary, the first column composed of labels indicating the different market segments, while the second column contains the actual figures, either in raw numbers or already in percentage form. Then, with a Chart wizard, a pie chart can be generated from the selected columns, with the columns set as the series of the chart. Make sure to make the percentage legends visible on the pie chart itself. The generated chart can then be used either embedded into the current sheet, together with the figures, or on another blank sheet.
Creating graphs and charts for reports and presentations is a very common activity, not only in the workplace, but also in schools. Fortunately, there are tools that make creating such charts from a given table of data quick and easy.
Probably one of the most popular tools comes from the Microsoft Office productivity suite. Both Word and Excel have tools for creating charts from spreadsheets. Excel is probably one of the most famous spreadsheet programs around and is used for tables of data. To generate a chart from a spreadsheet, simply highlight the range to be used as the data source, including row and column headers, and then choosing the Chart Wizard either from the toolbar or from the Insert Menu. The Wizard will then take the user through a series of options ranging from the type of chart to be used to whether the chart will plot rows or columns. Since Word is a word processing program, creating a chart involves inserting a pre-made chart and then modifying that to fit the needs and the data. Go to the Insert menu, click on the Object entry and then choose Microsoft Graph Chart as the Object Type.
Google, known for its wide variety of online applications, also has a chart-creating through its Google Spreadsheet. The mechanics of creating a chart is the same as above. Select the range of data to be used, and then select Chart from the Insert menu. A wizard appears letting the user customize the appearance and settings of the chart.
One advantage of using Google Spreadsheets over Microsoft Office is that the data and chart is available from anywhere using just a regular web browser, as long as there’s an internet connection available. However, this distinction is blurring with Microsoft Office Live as an online version of the regular Office suite and with Google Gears allowing offline usage of Google applications.
A currency graph is a chart of the “movement” of a currency pair over a given period of time, ranging from monthly, to daily, to by the minute updates. A currency pair is the correlation between two different currencies. The first in the pair is the base currency while the second is the quote currency. The currency pair depicts how many units of the quote currency is needed to buy one unit of the base currency. For example, GBP/USD 1.350 means that 1 GBP (British pound) is equivalent to 1.350 USD (U.S. dollars).
These charts are used by technical analysts to study past price movements and predict possible future movements of currency pairs. Fundamental analysts, on the other hand, use these charts to find correlation between trends shown in the charts and events that occur parallel to that, such as politics, economy, weather, and so on. Also, depending on the specific need of a trader, the time range that a chart focuses on can vary. A short-range investor might use a chart that plots currency movement for a single day while mid- to long-term investors might depend on weekly or monthly charts.
The structure of a currency chart is quite simple. The values of the currency pair are mapped on the vertical axis while units of time are placed on the horizontal axis. Price movement is then mapped using lines or candlesticks, the most common type of charts used in market-related graphs.
Due, however, to the dynamic nature of currency charts, it will be quite tedious to graph this movement by hand. In almost all cases, specialized software is used in drawing the graphs. This allows users to adjust the time focus of the chart or monitor different currency pairs. There are also a lot of free currency charts available online that offer up-to-date changes. With the growth of the Internet, technical indicators that were once available only to brokers and professional traders are now available to any trader with a computer.
