Diagrammatic Presentation: Bar Diagram

Diagrammatic Presentation of Bar Diagram: A History

Many historians attribute the invention of bar charts to Nelvin Ks. The first bar chart in history was in the Commercial and Political Atlas. According to some historians, the bar diagram first appeared during the Christmas season of 1781 in Scotland. 

What is a bar diagram?

A bar diagram is a chart or graphical depiction of facts, quantities, or numbers that use bars or strips to represent them. Experts use bar diagrams to compare and contrast different categories of data by comparing and contrasting numbers, frequencies, and other measurements. Bar diagrams are visible representations of data and are composed of vertical or horizontal rectangular bars. Experts call them “bar charts.” In statistics, bar diagrams are one of the data management methods

Statistics represent the gathering, presentation, analysis, organisation, and interpretation of data observations. Statisticians often use tables, bar diagrams, pie charts, histograms, frequency polygons, and other approaches to illustrate statistical data. A bar diagram is an effective way to present data that are unconnected to each other. There is no need for the bar diagram to display in a specific sequence. The bars provide a visual representation of values in many categories for comparison. The horizontal and vertical axes, sometimes known as the x and y-axes, and the title, labels, and scale range, are all included in the bar diagrams.

What are the characteristics of a bar diagram?

The following are some of the characteristics that distinguish a bar diagram from other graphs: 

• All rectangular bars should have the same width and an identical space in between. 
• We can draw the rectangular bars in both ways, namely a horizontal or vertical orientation.
• We can depict that the height of the rectangle bar reflects the quantity of data it represents.
• We need a frequent base for the rectangular bars.

What are the different uses of bar diagrams?

Experts use bar diagrams in mathematics and statistics. We can express crucial points about the bar diagram as follows: 

• Understanding the correlation between different variables is easy and convenient.
• A bar chart is an easy diagram to prepare and does not require much effort.
• A bar chart is the most widely used method of data representation. Professionals use it in several industries.
• We can compare it to different data sets.
•  The data sets are not related to each other. 
• A bar chart helps in studying patterns over long periods.

What are the different kinds of bar diagrams?

Experts classify bar diagrams into two types:

• Vertical bar diagram
• Horizontal bar diagram

We can plot the bars in bar diagrams either horizontally or vertically, but the most frequent use of a bar diagram is the vertical bar diagram. Besides the vertical and horizontal bar diagrams, there are two more types of bar diagrams, as mentioned below: 

• Grouped bar diagram
• Stacked bar diagram

What are the Vertical bar diagrams?

When we represent the data vertically in a graph or chart with the help of rectangular bars, it is called a “vertical bar diagram.”  The y-axis indicates the value of the height of the rectangular bars, designate the amount of the variables, and the x-axis shows the vertically drawn rectangular bars.

How to work on Horizontal bar diagrams?

When we present the given data horizontally using rectangular bars, such graphs are known as “horizontal bar diagrams.”  We have to create it with the help of written variables. We can plot the rectangular bars horizontally on the y-axis, and the x-axis shows the length of the bars equal to the values of different variables present in the data.

How to work on Grouped bar diagrams? 

The grouped bar diagram is popularly known as the clustered bar diagram. It shows the discrete value of a group of objects. A grouped bar diagram, in other words, is a sort of bar diagram that examines multiple collections of data elements. The grouped bar diagram can represent both vertical and horizontal bar charts.

How to identify a Stacked bar diagram?

The stacked bar diagram is also called the composite bar chart, and it divides the cumulative into different parts. We can show stacked bar diagrams in many colours that help us identify the distinctive categories. The stacked bar chart needs specific labelling to show the different parts of the bar. In a stacked bar diagram, each bar represents the whole, while each segment represents peculiar parts of the whole.

What are the benefits and drawbacks of a bar chart?

Advantages

• In a visual form, the bar diagram presents a large amount of data. 
• In the frequency distribution, the bar diagram depicts each type of data. 
• The bar diagram clarifies the trend of data better than the table.
• It helps in estimating the crucial values at a glance. 

Disadvantages

• Sometimes, the bar diagram fails to admit the patterns, causes, effects.
• Sometimes, the bar diagram can manipulate results to mislead the information. 

How to Draw a Bar diagram?

Consider the following scenario: Anil, Sunil, Ram, and Suhas score the following marks, and their corresponding scores out of 100 are 40, 35, 75, and 65 respectively.

You need to follow the following steps to create a bar chart:

1. 1. Provide the title of the bar diagram.
   2. Draw the horizontal axis and vertical axis.
   3. Now, label the horizontal axis.
   4. Write the names on the horizontal axis, such as “Anil,” “Sunil,” “Ram,” and “Suhas.”
   5. Label the vertical axis.

• Finally, set the scale range for the given data.

1. Lastly, draw the bar diagram of each student category with its number.

Conclusion: 

A bar diagram is a graphical illustration of information, such as facts, amounts, or statistics. Bar diagrams are visual data representations of vertical or horizontal rectangular bars.