{"id":16184,"date":"2018-02-13T09:00:21","date_gmt":"2018-02-13T09:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/pnr\/?p=16184"},"modified":"2026-02-03T17:44:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T17:44:40","slug":"dataflash-how-do-you-tell-a-story-with-data-anyway","status":"archive","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/dataflash-how-do-you-tell-a-story-with-data-anyway\/","title":{"rendered":"DataFlash: How DO You Tell a Story With Data Anyway?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you may know, it\u2019s \u201cLove Data Week<\/a>\u201d! Formerly \u201cLove Your Data Week\u201d, this is the third year of this international data extravaganza, which seeks to \u201craise awareness and build a community to engage on topics related to research data management, sharing, preservation, reuse, and library-based research data services.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 The theme this year is \u201cData Stories\u201d, which leads to the important question, \u201cHow DO you tell a story with data anyway?\u201d<\/p>\n

There are many sites that will help you get started on this quest; here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a> are some good ones.\u00a0 But, the main prerequisite is to KNOW YOUR DATA.\u00a0 \u00a0You can\u2019t tell a great story about someone else\u2019s vacation, right?\u00a0 Similarly, to tell a good story with your data, you need to know where it comes from and how it was gathered, what question it\u2019s meant to answer, and how it may lead you astray (if your random sample only comes from people with landlines, you may have a LEETLE bias).<\/p>\n

Once you know your data, LOOK FOR CONNECTIONS (like the girl in the picture!).\u00a0 Does a certain pattern seem to emerge if you look at two variables in conjunction with each other?\u00a0 Does one item seem to predict another?\u00a0 How does the data compare with other reports you can find in journals or online or among reports from colleagues?\u00a0 Remember, the data don\u2019t necessarily need to be quantitative; qualitative and other types of data can tell stories too!<\/p>\n

Then, once the connections start to emerge, SHARE YOUR LOVE!\u00a0 There are so many great tools to help you make the story take a shape that allows others to read\/absorb it!\u00a0 For example, Tableau has a public version that is free, Excel actually has quite a bit of capability for even sophisticated visualization, and some free online infographic platforms such as Piktochart<\/a> can be very user friendly.<\/p>\n

Be sure to check out the \u201cLove Data Week\u201d site<\/a>, and some of the links below as well.\u00a0 And let us know if you have ideas for how we can help you tell better stories!<\/p>\n

–\u201cBest Starts for Kids\u201d Data Storytelling webinar<\/a><\/p>\n

–Data Storytelling Resources, Part 1<\/a> and Part 2<\/a><\/p>\n

–NIH LibGuide on Scientific Communication and Data Storytelling (with slides and handout!)<\/p>\n

—Storytelling with Data<\/a> and related resource list<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Photo credit: Diane Hammerton<\/a> on Flickr<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As you may know, it\u2019s \u201cLove Data Week\u201d! Formerly \u201cLove Your Data Week\u201d, this is the third year of this international data extravaganza, which seeks to \u201craise awareness and build a community to engage on topics related to research data management, sharing, preservation, reuse, and library-based research data services.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 The theme this year is \u201cData… Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[54],"tags":[79,68,80],"class_list":["post-16184","post","type-post","status-archive","format-standard","hentry","category-data-science","tag-data-storytelling","tag-data_science","tag-love-data-week"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16184"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17233,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16184\/revisions\/17233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/region_5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}