A pie graph is a circle divided into sections which each display the size of a relative piece of information. Each section of the graph comes together to form a whole. In a pie graph, the length of each sector is proportional to the percentage it represents. Pie graphs work particularly well when each .slice. of the pie represents 25 to 50 percent of the given data.
The bar graph is a common type of graph which consists of parallel bars or rectangles with lengths that are equal to the quantities that occur in a given data set. The bars can be presented vertically or horizontally to show the contrast and record information. Bar graphs are used for plotting discontinuous (discrete) data. Discrete data contains discrete values and are not continuous.
A line graph displays information in a series of data points that each represents an individual measurement or piece of data. The series of points are then connected by a line to show a visual trend in data over a period of time. The line is connected through each piece chronologically.
An area graph is based on a line chart and displays quantitive data in the form of a graph. The area between the line and the axis is typically separated with textures or colors. Each area segment of an area graph is stacked on each other so that the total area of each category reflects the data. Each series of data is presented by a colored segment.
XY graphs are typically used to plot and display data pairs which consist of two separate values, the X-value and the Y-value. Each data pair represents information from given data and displayed as a symbol. The values are combined into single points and displayed in uneven clusters or intervals.