How to Write Overviews for Comparative Graphs

Now that you know how to write the overviews for the trend graphs we’re now going to look at how to

write the overviews for comparative graphs.

So here’s our first practice question.

We have a bar graph here.

We’ve already discussed this question prompt when we wrote the introduction for this question.

So I would be going over this question prompt again.

But if you’d like you can post the video now and read the question prompt so let’s move on to writing

the overview so you may recall that the first thing that we do when writing the overview is that we

have to look at the highest and the lowest data points.

Now we don’t have a trend graph here in a trend graph.

We look at the highest and the lowest data points at the start of the graph.

And we also look at the highest and the lowest data points at the end of the graph.

But we don’t have a period of time here since we don’t have a trend graph.

Instead we just have an info graphic which is comparing two different data sets.

In this example the two different data sets are for these two countries France and the UK.

So what you need to do in this case is you just need to look at the highest and the lowest data points

for France and then you have to look at the highest and the lowest data points for the UK.

So let’s go ahead and do that.

So as you can see here we have the highest data point for France.

And here we have the lowest data point for France.

Now it’s time to look at the highest and the lowest data points for the U.K.

So here we have the highest

data point for the UK.

And here we have the lowest so these are all the different features that we’re going to be discussing

in our overview.

Now when you’re writing your overview you’re free to write about this data in any way that you want.

So for example if you want to first talk about the highest data points and then talk about the low wage

data points you can do that on the other hand if you first want to talk about the highest and the lowest

data points from France and then talk about the highest and lowest data points from the U.K.

then you

can do that as well.

So it doesn’t matter how you describe this data.

The important thing is that you describe it in an accurate way so for my example I’m going to start

off by first talking about the highest data points and then I’m going to talk about the lowest data

points next.

So let’s see what that looks like.

Here we have the highest data points for both France and the U.K.

and we see that these highest data

points belong to cars.

So here’s our first sentence on the whole cars dominated as the leading consumer product in both the

U.K.

and France in the given period so we’re saying in the sentence that cars dominated the sales in

both countries in France and the U.K.

in the given period which in this case is the year 2010 for our

next sentence we’re going to look at the lowest data points in this case the lowest data points are

for perfume and cameras.

So here’s the second sentence additionally perfume and cameras occupied the bottom most positions in

the UK and France respectively.

So what this means is that the UK spend the least amount of money on perfume whereas France spent the

least amount of money on cameras so that completes our overview.

That’s all we have to right our overview only needs to be two or three sentences long.

So since we’ve discussed all of these different data points our overview is now complete.

Now let’s move on to our next example this time we have a table question.

So here’s the question prompt for this question.

I’ve already discussed this question prompt when we wrote the introduction.

So I won’t be going over it.

Instead I’ll move on straight to the overview.

So if you need to read the prompt you can post the video now

in the overview paragraph we have to give some basic information about the key data points in our info

graphic.

So usually these key data points are the starting and the ending data points and the highest and the

lowest data points now you’ll notice that in this table over here we don’t have a starting and an ending

data point because we don’t have a period of time.

In this example however we do have highest and lowest data points.

Therefore we have to describe the highest and the lowest data points in our overview.

In this example now I want to make a quick note about the highest and the lowest data points.

You’re completely free to choose the highest and the lowest data points.

However you’d like.

In this case you have two options.

Option number one is you can look at the highest and the lowest data points by countries so you can

see what is the highest data point for Ireland and what’s the lowest data point for Ireland.

Similarly you can look at the highest and the lowest data points for Italy Spain Sweden and Turkey Your

second option is to look at the highest and the lowest data points by category.

For example you can look at the highest data point and the lowest data point for food drinks and tobacco.

Then you can look at the highest data point and the lowest data point for clothing and footwear and

then you can look at the highest and the lowest data points for leisure and education in this particular

example.

It’s better to talk about the highest and the lowest data points by category because this way you’ll

have to describe a lesser number of data points.

And this is important because you only have three to five minutes to write the overview paragraph so

let’s go ahead and take a look at the highest and the lowest data points for our first category.

So here you can see that the highest data point belongs to Turkey and the lowest data point belongs

to Sweden let us move on to clothing and footwear in this category.

Italy has the highest data point and Sweden has the lowest finally in the leisure and education category.

Turkey has the highest data point and Spain has the lowest.

So now we have all the data points.

Now we’re going to talk about in our overview paragraph.

So let’s go ahead and write our overview paragraph.

Now we’re going to start off with our first sentence in which we’re going to talk about food drinks

and tobacco so our first sentence reads in brief Turkey had the highest spending on food drinks and

tobacco whereas Sweden spent the least on these items so here we are simply describing the highest and

the lowest data points.

Notice that we are not describing any numeric details at this point in the overview paragraph.

You only have to give basic information.

We only talk about the numbers in the third and the fourth paragraph.

Now let’s move on to our second sentence in the second sentence.

We’re going to talk about our second category which is clothing and footwear in the clothing and footwear

category.

Italy took the lead while Sweden occupied the last spot.

Now let’s look at our final sentence in the final sentence.

We’re going to talk about the final category.

Finally the Turkish population made the most significant investment in education and leisure whereas

the Spanish invested the least OK.

It’s as simple as that.

You simply have to describe the highest and the lowest data points let’s move on to our next example

this time we have a pie chart question similar to the previous examples you’ve already seen this question

before when we wrote our introduction so I’ll just move straight to the overview so the first thing

that you need to do is you need to look at the highest and the lowest data points for the first pie

chart and then you need to look at the highest and the lowest data points for the second pie chart so

in this case in the first pie chart.

Here are our highest and the lowest data points the highest data point belongs to heating and the lowest

data point belongs to cooling for our second pie chart.

This is our lowest data point and this is our highest data point.

Now when you’re writing your overview you’re free to arrange this information in any way that you want.

For example first you could talk about the first pie chart and then in the next sentence you could talk

about the second pie chart on the other hand if you want to talk about the highest data points first

and then talk about the lowest data points in the next sentence.

Then you can do that as well.

So in my example I’m first going to describe the highest data points in both the pie charts and then

I’m going to describe the lowest data points in both the pie charts so here’s our first sentence in

general Australian residents utilize the most energy in heating while emitting the most substantial

amount of greenhouse gas via water heating.

Now let’s talk about the lowest data points in our next sentence.

So here’s our next sentence.

On the other hand cooling expense the least amount of energy and also produces the least greenhouse

emissions so we’ve written two sentences in this overview and we’ve talked about all the important data

points that we’ve circled in the red color.

So our overview is now complete.

Now let’s move on to our final example here.

We have a mixed chart question.

We’ve already written the introduction for this question so let’s move on to the overview.

The first thing that you need to do is you need to find the highest and the lowest data points in the

two infographics.

The easiest way to do this in this example is to find the highest and the lowest data points for the

pie chart and then find the highest and the lowest data points for the table.

So first let’s look at the pie chart.

So in our pie chart here we have the highest data point.

It belongs to overgrazing.

And here we have the lowest data point.

Now let’s move on to the table.

Now you may be wondering which highest and lowest data points should you talk about should you talk

about the highest and lowest data points by category.

For example deforestation over cultivation and overgrazing or should you look at the highest and the

lowest data points by the region which are North America Europe and Oceania.

Or should you look at the highest and the lowest data point by the total land degraded so we have three

different options here to talk about the highest and the lowest data point.

We can describe the highest and the lowest data points by these categories here.

We can describe it by the regions here or we can describe them by the total amount listed here which

one should we choose.

Let me give you a little hint you only have three to five minutes to write the overview and you only

have to write two or three sentences for the overview.

This means that you should choose the option with the least amount of data points in this example.

This choice here contains the least amount of data points because in this case we only have two data

points.

Here is our lowest data point.

And here is our highest data point.

So in our overview we’re going to be talking about these four data points.

The easiest way to describe these data points is to first describe the data points from the pie chart

and then describe the data points from the table in the next sentence.

So here’s our first sentence.

It reads in brief overgrazing of land is the leading cause of global land deterioration while unspecified

reasons account for the lowest amount of land decay so we’re saying that overgrazing is the leading

cause of land deterioration and other unspecified causes account for the least amount of land decay.

Now it’s time to describe these data points from our table.

So here’s our next sentence furthermore.

Europe has experienced the most significant amount of total land degradation whereas North America has

suffered the least.

So here’s our highest data point.

And we’re saying that Europe has experienced the highest amount of land degradation and North America

has experienced the least amount so we’ve written two sentences in our overview and we’ve talked about

the highest and the lowest data points in the pie chart as well as the table.

So our overview is now complete now before I end this video.

I want to make one final reminder never mention these key numeric details in the overview.

So no such as this 7 percent 35 percent 5 percent or twenty three percent.

These numbers should never be mentioned in the overview in the overview.

You’re just giving some basic information.

We only mention these key numeric details in paragraph number 3 and number 4 so that’s all for this

video.

Good job everyone for coming this far into the course.

In the next video I’m going to show you how to write the overviews for process diagrams so I’ll see

you there.