Speculating on why something happened is a favorite pastime for many, but persuading others to accept your speculations requires evidence. Regardless of the genre in which you present your speculations—a PowerPoint presentation, Facebook update, blog post, or news analysis—graphs, charts, diagrams, and tables can be especially useful in demonstrating a trend. A line graph can show change over time, a bar graph can make a comparison, and a pie chart can demonstrate at a glance how a whole is divided into its parts. A flowchart—like the one that follows showing the sequence of events preceding the 2008 mortgage crisis—can help readers understand how a process occurred. For online arguments speculating about causes, animated line graphs, flowcharts, and even videos (like the one included here) can make the analysis even more compelling.

Play the video.

Read the transcript.

© Jonathan Jarvis

Source: Jarvis, Jonathan. “The Crisis of Credit Visualized.” Crisis of Credit. Crisisofcredit.com, 2012. Web. 20 Sept. 2012. crisisofcredit.com/