Turn numbers into people and otherwise reframe the data
Which is more dangerous? A disease that kills 1,286 out of every 10,000 people it strikes? Or one that kills 12.86% of its victims?… Read the full article
Writing with statistics
Don’t do a data dump when writing statistics
Don’t make your readers’ eyes glaze over
“Great clots of numbers dropped into a story with a steam shovel create a wall of abstraction.”
— William Blundell, author, The Art and Craft of Feature Writing
Don’t create a wall of abstraction.… Read the full article
Make size and scale visual
How tiny is tiny? How huge is huge?
How small is small? One-third the size of a ladybug? The size of a sprinkle on an ice cream cone?… Read the full article
Give numbers context
How can you help people see 6,000?
When 6,000 power poles went down in Arkansas during a series of ice storms, Entergy Senior Communications Specialist David Lewis needed a way to make that number tangible in an executive speech.… Read the full article
Turn populations into people
Help readers see a classroom of children
Compare the impact of this statement …’
“Each day, we lose 30 children to gun violence.”
… to the impact of this one:
“Each day, we lose a classroom of children to gun violence.”
Turn numbers into things
Clarify data by giving it context
When the late, great Kansas City Star columnist C.W. Gusewelle wanted to help readers understand the fragility of monarch butterflies as they migrate south for the winter, he wrote:
Consulting the literature, I find that the average weight of an adult monarch may be expressed as 0.0176 of an ounce, about the same as a good-sized snowflake.