{"id":1438,"date":"2013-08-05T13:01:45","date_gmt":"2013-08-05T18:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/articles\/\/"},"modified":"2016-01-21T13:03:21","modified_gmt":"2016-01-21T18:03:21","slug":"data-visualisation-competition-pen-and-paper-may-be-good-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/articles\/data-visualisation-competition-pen-and-paper-may-be-good-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"Data visualisation competition: pen and paper may be good enough"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of weeks ago we and the\u00a0<a href=https://onthinktanks.org/"http:////www.opensocietyfoundations.org//about//programs//think-tank-fund/" target=\"_blank\">Think Tank Fund<\/a>\u00a0launched a<a title=\"Data visualisation competition for think\u00a0tanks\" href=https://onthinktanks.org/"https:////onthinktanks.org//2013//07//22//data-visualisation-competition-for-think-tanks///" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0data visualisation competition for think tanks in developing countries<\/a>. Our intention is to use the process to share interesting and useful resources for think tanks who want to try new ways of communicating -and not just reward those who already know how to do this well.<\/p>\n<p>This will be the first of a series of posts on data visualisation resources. Therefore, let&#8217;s begin with the basics.<\/p>\n<p>Nature.com has organised all their data visualisation posts into a single one:\u00a0<a href=https://onthinktanks.org/"http:////blogs.nature.com//methagora//2013//07//data-visualization-points-of-view.html/">Data visualization: A view of every Points of View column<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The post is full of excellent advice and examples, but none better than this one (I think):<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=https://onthinktanks.org/"http:////www.nature.com//nmeth//journal//v9//n11//full//nmeth.2223.html/">Pencil and paper<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 November 2012:\u00a0Quick sketches and doodles of data or models aids thinking and the scientific process<\/strong>. In this article,\u00a0<a href=https://onthinktanks.org/"http:////www.nature.com//nmeth//journal//v9//n11//full//nmeth.2223.html#auth-1\">Bang Wong<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=https://onthinktanks.org/"http:////www.nature.com//nmeth//journal//v9//n11//full//nmeth.2223.html#auth-2\">Rikke Schmidt Kj\u00e6rgaard<\/a>\u00a0argue that:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Creating pictures is integral to scientific thinking. In the visualization process, putting pencil to paper is an essential act of inward reflection and outward expression. It is a constructive activity that makes our thinking specific and explicit. Compared to other constructive approaches such as writing or verbal explanations, visual representation places distinct demands on our reasoning skills by forcing us to contextualize our understanding spatially.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And conclude with very useful advice for the budding &#8220;data\u00a0visualisation producer&#8221;:<em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Pencil and paper provide an immediacy that is unmatched.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The main article in nature organises its posts according to the following categories:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Composition and layout<\/li>\n<li>Using color<\/li>\n<li>Elements of a figure<\/li>\n<li>Improving figure clarity<\/li>\n<li>Multidimensional data<\/li>\n<li>Data exploration<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It you are thinking of applying to the\u00a0<a href=https://onthinktanks.org/"http:////ttdatavis.onthinktanks.org/" target=\"_blank\">Data Visualisation Competition<\/a>\u00a0I recommend that you have a look at\u00a0<a href=https://onthinktanks.org/"http:////blogs.nature.com//methagora//2013//07//data-visualization-points-of-view.html/" target=\"_blank\">this page<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>To submit your application go straight to the\u00a0<a href=https://onthinktanks.org/"http:////ttdatavis.onthinktanks.org//submit-a-data-visualisation///" target=\"_blank\">Submissions Page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of weeks ago we and the\u00a0Think Tank Fund\u00a0launched a\u00a0data visualisation competition for think tanks in developing countries. Our intention is to use the process to share interesting and useful resources for think tanks who want to try new ways of communicating -and not just reward those who already know how to do this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[220,190],"class_list":["post-1438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-communication","tag-data-visualisation","article-types-opinion","people-enrique-mendizabal","series-tt-data-visualisation","theme-communications"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}