| Course | BU 454 Data Visualization |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Chart critique |
| Length | About 910 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Herzing University |
| Program | BS in Business Analytics |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for BU 454 Unit 2
Seven Percent Drawn as Six Times Taller: A Chart Critique of a Composite Montana Ski Area's Season Pass Slide, Tracing the Impression to Its Mechanism and Redrawing It
Student Name
Business, Herzing University
BU 454: Data Visualization
Instructor Name
January 28, 2026
Seven Percent Drawn as Six Times Taller: A Chart Critique of a Composite Montana Ski Area's Season Pass Slide, Tracing the Impression to Its Mechanism and Redrawing It
The Chart Under Review
The supplied graphic is a slide from the marketing coordinator at Bearpaw Ridge, a composite Montana ski area used in this course, prepared for the owners' spring meeting. It is titled "Season Pass Sales Soar" and shows season pass sales for five seasons as three-dimensional columns: 1,905 passes in 2020 to 2021, then 1,930, 1,962, 1,998 and 2,040 in 2024 to 2025. The vertical axis runs from 1,880 to 2,060. The final column looks roughly six times as tall as the first.
This critique asks three questions in order. What does the design encourage a reader to conclude? Which specific features produce that impression? And what does the same data look like drawn so that the impression matches the numbers? It does not ask whether the coordinator meant to mislead. The slide was built with a spreadsheet's default settings, and Cairo (2019) argues that most misleading charts come from careless defaults rather than bad intent; the critique concerns the chart, not the person.
What the Chart Encourages a Reader to Conclude
Shown the slide for ten seconds, a reader would conclude that pass sales grew dramatically, several times over, in five years. The title says "soar," and the picture agrees with the title. A board member who remembered only the image would believe the pass program had transformed the business.
The data say something more modest. Sales rose from 1,905 to 2,040, an increase of 135 passes or 7.1 percent over four years, about 1.7 percent a year. That is steady growth, worth reporting, but not a surge. The distance between those two readings, a transformed program and a modestly growing one, matters for the decision the owners face at the meeting, which is whether to raise next season's pass price. A board that believes demand is surging will raise it more boldly than one that sees gradual growth, so the chart's impression could change a real pricing decision, not only an opinion.
The Features That Produce the Impression
Three features produce the gap between image and data, and they are listed in order of effect.
The truncated baseline does most of the work. In a column chart, value is encoded as the length of each column from the axis, so the axis must start at zero for lengths to be proportional to values. Starting at 1,880 means the first column shows only the 25 passes above 1,880 and the last shows 160. The last column is therefore 6.4 times the height of the first, while the value is 1.07 times as large. Tufte (2001) proposed the lie factor, the size of an effect in the graphic divided by the size of the effect in the data. Here the graphic shows an increase of 540 percent and the data an increase of 7.1 percent, a lie factor of about 76.
The three-dimensional perspective adds a second distortion. The columns have depth and are viewed slightly from above, so their tops sit behind the front edge and the gridlines meet the back wall rather than the columns. A reader cannot tell which edge to read against the scale, and the added depth makes the tallest column look heavier still.
The title completes the impression, and it is the easiest of the three to fix. "Soar" tells the reader what to see before they look, and the chart's shape confirms it. Pandey et al. (2015) found in experiments that truncated axes and similar techniques changed viewers' judgments of the underlying data, even when the axis labels were visible, which is why the numbers printed on this slide's axis do not protect readers from the picture.
The Same Data, Redrawn
Two redrawn versions were prepared, one for each thing a reader might legitimately want to see, using the same five values and the same source note as the original.
| Version | Design | What it shows | When to use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Original slide | 3D columns, axis from 1,880, title "Soar" | Apparent six-fold growth | Not recommended |
| Redraw A | Flat columns from zero, each labeled with its value, title "Pass Sales Up 7 Percent Over Four Seasons" | Columns of nearly equal height; growth is steady and modest | When the question is how large the program is |
| Redraw B | Line with dots, axis from 1,850 clearly marked, annotated with the yearly change, same honest title | The year-to-year trend, rising every season | When the question is whether sales are growing consistently |
Redraw A restores the proportion that column length promises. Redraw B shows why truncation is not always wrong: a line encodes value by position, not by length from the axis, so a line chart may start its axis above zero to make a small but consistent change visible, provided the axis is labeled and the title does not overstate the change. Seen together, the two versions give the owners what the original tried to give them, evidence of steady growth, without the false impression.
One addition came from asking what else the owners would need to judge the program. Average pass prices fell over the same period as the early-purchase discount deepened, from $489 to $469, so pass revenue grew only about 2.7 percent. A small second panel showing revenue beside passes sold is recommended, since a chart about pass volume alone invites a conclusion about money that the data do not support.
If the Chart Had Not Been Misleading
A critique can conclude that a chart is sound, and it should say so with the same care. Had the coordinator drawn flat columns from zero, the critique would have checked the title against the data, the labels against the scale and the color choices against the message, and could have found little to change. The value of the exercise lies in tracing each impression to a mechanism, not in finding fault. Bearpaw Ridge, the slide and its figures are composites written for the course.
References
Cairo, A. (2019). How charts lie: Getting smarter about visual information. W. W. Norton.
Pandey, A. V., Rall, K., Satterthwaite, M. L., Nov, O., & Bertini, E. (2015). How deceptive are deceptive visualizations? An empirical analysis of common distortion techniques. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1469-1478). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702608
Tufte, E. R. (2001). The visual display of quantitative information (2nd ed.). Graphics Press.
The Herzing BU 454 Unit 2 instructions
For the second unit, BU 454 asks students to critique a supplied chart. Common requirements include describing what the chart leads a reader to conclude, identifying the specific design features responsible, measuring distortion where possible and redrawing the data so the difference is visible. Many instructors ask what to do if the chart is not actually misleading and whether to accuse the designer of deception; a sound chart should be judged as sound, and intent is usually outside the analysis. Critiquing an employer's published report is discouraged. The critique is usually a short APA 7 paper with the original and redrawn charts described or shown side by side. Instructors generally prefer one clear mechanism, well explained, to a long list of small complaints about fonts and colors.
How the BU 454 Unit 2 example is put together
The critique opens by describing the slide, its data and axis range, and sets out three questions while stating that intent is not at issue. It then contrasts the conclusion the slide invites with what the numbers say. A section traces the impression to three features in order of effect, calculating the lie factor for the truncated baseline and citing experimental evidence that truncation misleads even with visible labels. A table compares the original with two redrawn versions and when each suits. A section adds a revenue panel the owners need. The final section explains how the critique would proceed if the chart had been sound.
BU 454 Unit 2 rubric: what full points look like
Chart critique rubrics usually reward an accurate description of the chart's message, identification of specific mechanisms, measurement of distortion, a corrected redraw and a fair tone, plus presentation. The message criterion earns full credit when the student states what a typical reader would conclude. Mechanisms score highest when each feature is linked to the impression it creates. Measurement rewards quantifying the gap, for example with a lie factor. The redraw is judged on whether it uses the same data and shows the honest reading. Fair tone earns points when the critique avoids speculating about motive. Instructors also credit critiques that explain when a technique such as axis truncation is acceptable.
BU 454 Unit 2 help before you submit
Chart critiques often lose points by calling a chart misleading without naming the feature that misleads. Another common problem is accusing the designer of deception, which the evidence rarely supports. Students frequently criticize style, such as fonts or colors, while missing a truncated baseline. Some redraw with different data, making the comparison unfair. Others claim that truncated axes are always wrong, ignoring that line charts can start above zero when labeled. Many forget to ask what else the audience needs, such as revenue alongside volume. Finally, critiquing your own company's published materials can create awkward professional situations; a supplied chart makes the same points without that risk.
Get a BU 454 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
Send us the Unit 2 instructions, the rubric your BU 454 section posts and the graphic the assignment gives you to examine. We write a custom example that names the impression first, works the features in order, redraws with one change at a time and separates misleading from ugly. First custom sample free, returned in 24 to 48 hours.
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BU 454 Unit 2 questions, answered
What if the chart I am given is not actually misleading?
Then say so and prove it, which is a legitimate result rather than a dead end. Walk the same features, clear each one, and show that the design supports the reading its title claims. Then push further: a chart can be honest and still make the reader work, so identify the comparison it makes hard and redraw it to make that comparison easy.
Should I say the chart was designed to deceive?
Avoid it unless the assignment supplies evidence of intent, and it almost never does. Most of these defects come from a default setting nobody questioned or from a template built for something else. Naming the mechanism is worth full credit; guessing at motive is an unsupported claim that a marker can strike without touching the rest of your analysis.
Could I critique a report my own company publishes?
Only if it is genuinely public, and even then check the instructions first. Internal reporting screens, management packs and anything behind a company login are the employer's property, and a critique reproduces the graphic to make its argument. A published annual report or a public agency release gives you the same material with none of the exposure, and markers accept those readily.
Where can I find a free BU 454 Unit 2 sample paper?
The whole BU 454 Unit 2 chart critique is free above, including the mechanism analysis, the lie factor, both redraws and margin notes. For a different supplied chart, send it with your instructions and a custom critique follows at no cost, typically within 48 hours.
Should BU 454 Unit 2 say the chart was meant to deceive?
Usually not. The sample notes that the slide was built with default settings and focuses on how its features produce the impression, which is what the evidence can show.