How to plan, draft, write and finish a doctoral thesis or dissertation

178 ◆ AUTHORING A PHD
(f) Line graph
Proportion of the UK survey respondents seeing
their governments as doing a good job in 2001
(hypothetical)
Respondents saying government is
doing a good job (%)
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
J F M A M J J A S O N D
Month of the year
Smoothed ‘good job’ % ‘Good job’
Use a line graph chart whenever:
– you have continuous over-time data.
Don’t use line graph charts if:
– the data are over-time but are not really continuous;
– you have very few observations: in both these cases
use a vertical bar chart.
Points to watch:
– if you have more than one line, make sure that they
are each visible.