Need help with school assignment (is that okay here?)

If this is NOT okay, I apologize in advance, but I don't really go to any other websites where I can ask for help, and nobody in my personal life has a clue.

I am taking a statistics in psychology class, and one of my problems this week is to find an example in a newspaper or magazine (online ok) of a graph that misleads by failing to use equal interval sizes or by exaggerating proportions.

I've browsed and browsed and browsed. The graphs/charts I've found don't seem to be misleading, but maybe I need to dig more on places like fox news, or yahoo news. I'm not asking anyone to find the answer for me! Maybe you can give me some idea of search term combinations or something like that that would guide me in the right direction? Or maybe you have some advice for a specific website that might be notorious for presenting misleading research?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and again, sorry if this is any kind of T&C violation.

you simply need to refine your search on the internet..."statistical abnormalities"..."fooling people with statistics"...along those lines...think outside the box as far as search terms.

Sounds like you should choose one of many bogus presidential polls to feature in your assignment, they're all wrong.

here is this
showing you what to look for.

faculty.atu.edu...

www.econoclass.com...

and here is an example from the cdc

www.smokingaloud.com...

that should get you started...good luck

Just watch #honestmistake about the Ron Paul campaign and polling from the MSM.

reply to post by MojaveBurning


I think any websites belonging to the mainstream media would be a great place to look for misleading graphs. I agree, stories involving Ron Paul might provide some... or the economy, maybe. There are always a lot of graphs about that.

Google Immigration graph, no doubt you will find one in a mainstream newspaper that will be garaunteed to be based on total fiction. Though Immigrants wont be getting bashed in the press for at least another year or two, im not sure which part of the cycle were on but immigrants were getting blamed for EVERYTHING not too long ago. So it may not be the trendiest subject to pick.

Failing that, paypal me 30 dollars and ill do it for you.

Check out the graphs that they use in USA today.
Think you'll find some useful stuff there.

reply to post by MojaveBurning


Stock charts are great for this. an example:

How Charts lie

Originally posted by jimmyx
you simply need to refine your search on the internet..."statistical abnormalities"..."fooling people with statistics"...along those lines...think outside the box as far as search terms.

edit on 29-7-2012 by jimmyx because: context

Excellent advice, thank you!

Originally posted by BIHOTZ
here is this
showing you what to look for.

faculty.atu.edu...

www.econoclass.com...

and here is an example from the cdc

www.smokingaloud.com...

that should get you started...good luck

Great links, these are very very helpful, I appreciate your effort!

reply to post by TheLieWeLive


Thanks, I'll check it out!

reply to post by Murad


Thanks for the suggestion, but I think I'll keep my $30 and do my own work!

I was trying to reply to everyone, because you all presented some really really good ideas to get me going. Seems like the good ideas keep rolling in, so I'll just start handing out gold stars instead! Thank you all very much, and thanks for not getting all snarky!

I think you could take most any survey and show it to be skewed towards one side or the other. Especially any 'online survey' as they are typically easy to sway in whatever direction one chooses to.

It's quite similar to 'research grants', in my opinion, for the most part ... with the 'results' of said 'research' typically leaning towards some sort of preconceived or 'anticipated' outcome.

I found what I was looking for! A ridiculously simple, half as*** prepared graph on USA Today about people who use their cell phones on airplanes.

Thanks again everyone.

reply to post by MojaveBurning


you may still want to take a look at this one:
www.anandtech.com...

gotta love how the graph starts at 0.8x - it surely doesn't give the impression that their new gpus are 'oh so much faster and worth the cash'

VanCharts will surely give you good solution for getting your work done. 

I'll give you another example no one has really mentioned yet. Anyone who has taken 6th grade should be familiar with people modifying the charts (or that's when I had those classes atleast). One that you'll almost never be taught about though is polling results. When polls are conducted they will find a certain number such as saying 54% of Americans are voting for Mitt Romney and 46% are voting for Obama. However, somewhere in the reporting of the poll will be some fine print that states the margin of error on the poll. The margin could be as wide as 7%, so if someone wants to spin the poll for Obama they'll add 7% to him while taking 7% from Romney, then they can report the poll as Romney 47%, Obama 53%. This is within the polls reported data so it's completely legal to do. Alternatively, someone who wants to make the lead look like a landslide can say Romney 61%, Obama 39%.

Using this example you can often find the same poll with different numbers on every news network (Fox, CNN, MSNBC make for a good baseline comparisons).

Edit: I'm going to give you one more and tell you exactly where to find it. Look up the 2008 bailouts, and the CEO's assigning bonuses.
It was reported like this
Bailout: 175 Billion
Bonuses: 165 Million

What they were doing is comparing 175 to 165 to make it look like most of the bailout money went to reward CEO's. Yet there was billion/million stated but those numbers sound the same and aren't really comprehensible to people anyways, very few people can equate the difference in an order of magnitude in their head. More accurate reporting would have said:
Bailout: 175,000 Million
Bonuses: 165 Million

This way the scale wouldn't have been changed when presenting the information.

a reply to: MojaveBurning

Nothing personal against you or anything honestly. But why in hell with the internet at your fingertips could you not do that assignment yourself???

I don't get it. How much easier can it get for an assignment in school now??? School is nothing but figuring out who's faster at Googling an answer to something it seems.

I don't even blame you. It's not even bad if you do in fact learn something I suppose but something is wrong here. I loved my psychology class when I was in school. This is before internet. We even had a similar assignment of having to find an example of subliminal advertising. I remember going through ads studying the ice cubes and backgrounds looking. Even after I found some examples it was just fun to keep looking.

I don't know. I think I'm just being an old fart now and scolding the times so I'll stop now.

If you don't mind me asking. What did you do all day today??? I see you're in Cali where it is almost midnight. What kept you from doing this assignment until now??? Be honest I'm not judging you. I'm just wondering what your day is filled with which puts you having to cram at the last minute.

a reply to: mOjOm

Given that the the thread was made in 2012 I think it's safe to say that it the OP has moved on

Seems like you have been caught by a spammer bringing up an old thread.

a reply to: nonspecific

Ah bummer. I never look at the dates of posts unless it has something to do with it.

Oh, well. I'd still like to know the answer to my question too.

That sux.