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As you think about what information to present in a graphic, analyze your audience and purpose. Why is your
audience reading your document? What point you are trying to make with this graphic? What types of charts and
graphs do your readers understand? Your answers will help you choose the most effective kind of graphic to convey
your point and will help you determine the level of detail to use when explaining the graphic in your text.
General audiences
General audiences know how to read common graphics such as bar graphs and pie charts. Because these
types of graphics appear frequently in newspapers and magazines, they are good choices for the general public.
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Figure 1. Average Number of Credit Hours Taken by a Student Each Semester, by Class Standing
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Expert audiences
Expert audiences have experience interpreting specialized types of graphics used in their field,
such as scatter plots and logarithmic graphs. A meteorologist, for example, would likely be able to
understand the following scatter plot that shows how rainfall influences runoff in a particular watershed.
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Figure 17. Effect of Rainfall on Runoff in the Wrangell Watershed over a Two-Week Period
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