Dissemination of the results is an integrated part of the survey. All countries have their own tradition and approach. Our recommendation is to consider a more comprehensive approach with the elements as listed below. In addition to the presentation of statistics for a wider audience, it is essential to document the survey work, to store the micro data and make these data available for all national and international research institu-tions upon a valid request to the national statistical institute as discussed in the next chapter.
The main challenge for presenting statistics to a wider audience is to make the information available in a user friendly manner. Hence this is the main content of this chapter.
The dissemination strategy should include the following elements:
The dissemination listed in the Release calendar of the national statistical institute
Making the printed report and press release available to the Ministry in charge 24 hours ahead of re-lease.
The statistical report made available in printing and on the Web-site at the release day.
A press release presenting the highlights in 1 page the very same day
A dissemination workshop at the day of official release
Offering assistance to the media for interviews and some guidance for proper media presentation of highlights at the day of release
11.1. Some guidelines for making statistics available to the public in a user-friendly way
Presenting statistics to a wider audience (the informed public, the media, teachers, students, libraries; in short: non-experts) is (or should be) different from writing for colleagues and experts. What follow is a few points that should be relevant also when making a tabulation report such as from the Core Survey.
A user-friendly "analysis" or presentation is...
to select (between all the possible) numbers
to compare numbers and point out differences, trends and tendencies
to point out/to guide the reader: What is important here?
to put into context
to explain (the unexpected/ups and downs, etc.)
In short: To help the reader answer the question: "What do the numbers really mean?"
Also, this kind of analysis provides a necessary feedback to the statistical production process; revealing ambiguities and weaknesses in data, providing ideas for new tables, variables or indicators, thereby contrib-uting to better and more reliable statistics. In this sense, analysis is a necessary and worthwhile ingredient of statistics.
User-friendly presentations usually have three elements, text, tables and graphs.
Text
KISS: "Keep It Short and Simple"
Get to the point: Avoid long introductions (like discussions about methods, etc.). People tend to loose interest if they don't find something interesting at the beginning
Use "motivating" titles and subtitles. Don’t use "Education" or "Health" as subtitles. Instead use ti-tles like "Increasing enrolment" or "Decreasing life expectancy". Such titi-tles will attract the reader's attention and also help them remember the main points of your analysis
Don't repeat all the numbers that are reported in a table or graph. Don’t write "65.8 per cent", but
"two out of three"
Don’t use acronyms (like MPRSP or PPE) and abbreviations; they are very often not meaningful to the non-expert
Tables & numbers
KISS: For popular presentations, tables should be small and simple (larger reference tables can be put in an appendix)
Focus on a few indicators/variables at a time
Reduce number of decimals:
o Never use two decimals when giving percentages.
o When reporting percentages from census, adm. data, etc., use one decimal
o When reporting percentages from surveys, use no decimal, except when the sample is very large
o For most other indicators (rates, age, life expectancy), the general rule is one decimal
Rounding: When presenting statistics to a wider audience, details are of little interest. Therefore, rounding numbers (to two or three effective digits) is often effective.
o For instance: 27,789 27 800
Simplify titles in tables (and graphs).
o Not: Distribution of households by type of household. Instead: Household types o Instead of "…by gender (or sex)" write: "men and women/males and females"
Graphs
Why use graphs, when tables usually give far more (and detailed) information? The answer is that, in large tables, the key information often disappears in numerical noise: There are simply too many num-bers.
Graphs give a immediate, visual and intuitive impression of trends, differences between phenomena or relationships (correlations) be-tween variables. Graphs compress data and they are – when properly designed – effective means of dissemination. Graphs are well suited both for presenting statistics on the Internet and for use in printed publications; sometimes replacing a table, more often supplementing a table or a text, illustrating a specific point or visualising a trend.
KISS also applies to graphs; they should be small and simple. A well-designed graph does not need a full (or even a half) page. For most purposes (and depending on the format of the publication), the size should be something like this:
Avoid "overloading" the graph. Don’t put too much information into one graph: For example, a line graph should generally not have more than 4 or 5 lines.
If possible, move the legend/explanation into the graph. This makes it easier to read and understand the graph
If possible, move the legend/explanation into the graph. This makes it easier to read and understand the graph
Don’t use "3D"-charts. So-called three-dimensional charts have become very popular. These are not really three-dimensional, but two-dimensional with some depth and perspective added.
Because of this, they are often very difficult to read, and there-fore not recommended.
Be careful when "cutting" the value-axis! Sometimes it is tempting to "increase" the variation or amplify a trend in a graph by setting the minimum value at some value above zero.
But this may give a very misleading impression of the trend: In the graph on the left, there seems to
be a dramatic downturn in 1992 (in-dicating that the rate has almost reached its "bottom"), but in the oth-er graph, the decrease is much less impressive, but still the best illustra-tion of the reality.