Writing from Data

Many academic writing tasks require you to present information that you have gathered or that you have been given in to explain or interpret the information. One common way of presenting data is to use a table.

Many beginning writers simply take the tables that they get from a database or statistical package and insert them into their writing, but this practice is not usually very effective. When you present data in a table you should consider whether the way you have labeled and organized it will be understandable to your audience. You should also consider what your purpose as a writer is. Why are you presenting this information? What is the main idea that you want to convey? Even when we are presenting numerical data, we as writers need to consider that the thesis of the writing is and how we can make it clear to the audience. One important way of making sure the information in a table is clear is to provide good labels.

Consider Table 1. The title on the table “Health Statistics 2002-2003” gives the reader a very general idea of the kind of information the table will contain and the dates it was collected, but it does not help the reader to understand what the writer’s main point is in presenting the table. What does the writer want the reader to focus on? By looking at the headings for the columns on the right “France” and “USA,” we can guess that the writer’s focus is a comparison of the two countries. The information in the rows suggests that the comparison will be related to “life expectancy” and the “percent” of the population that were “overweight.” By looking at these labels we can figure out what the purpose of the comparison might be, but it would be much more effective if the writer put a title on the table that made its purpose explicit.

The second key way to use the presentation of data to support your main purpose is to explain the information in the table is clearly in the text of the writing. Do not assume that a reader will look at the table and understand it the way you intend.

The information in table 1 comes from an article by Paul Rozin in which he examines what has been called “The French Paradox.” From an American point of view, the paradox is that the French appear to eat food that is rich and high in cholesterol – including cream, high-fat cheeses, and meats – but they seem to be healthier than Americans. Since Americans generally believe that diet is a main factor in health and disease and since many diet experts in the U.S. recommend low-fat diets, this combination of a rich diet and good health appears puzzling. To investigate the paradox, Rozin and his colleagues conducted a survey of the attitudes about food of French and American college students. Some of the survey results appear in Table 2. In Table 2, we provide the very specific title of the table that Rozin used in his article. Note how clearly it defines the source of the information and its purpose. The box below gives an example of how the results of the table could be described in the text to highlight the main purpose of the writer.

Table 3 shows the results from the same article of a comparison of the serving sizes of food in restaurants and supermarkets in France and the United States.