Throughout this class, there has been a strong emphasis on data visualization in the humanities. I have developed a great interest in this type of work, as I have completed multiple internships and courses where these skills are essential. The tool I will be writing about is Google Sheets, specifically its data visualization capabilities. The primary goal of this tool is to tell a story or clearly report a finding. There is a wealth of data in the humanities that, when visualized, can reveal fascinating insights across fields like linguistics, art history, and archaeology. Below, I will provide a tutorial on how to create graphs in Google Sheets to tell a compelling story.
Step 1:
Gather some data based on your source, I chose some basic sales data but humanities data would hopefully be a lot more comprehensive.
Step 2:
Highlight all of the data that you want to use, in this case I highlighted my entire data set but based on what you want on your graph you would highlight that data.
Step: 3
Once you have highlighted all of the data that you want to use, go to the top ribbon on the top of the screen and select insert. This dropdown pictured above will show up and you will select chart.
Step 4:
A default chart like this will show up. From this chart you can make manual edits, the first edit I made was to change the title of the chart.
Step 5:
Once you are done making manual edits to your graph, this menu will show up on the right side of your screen. Here you can change the type of chart you want to display and you can also change smaller items such as color, units, and lines.
Step 6:
Finally, you will end up with a personalized graph that tells a story or gives a report based on what you want to see.
Other Resources:
- Although old, I find this YouTube video to be really helpful with designing and creating a useful graph.
- Here is an in depth appendix put out by google covering the basics and advanced parts of creating charts, this would be helpful as data gets to be larger and more complex.
I really like this tutorial that you have presented Austin. Knowledge with google sheets is a valuable asset that can help you organize and visualize data. The graphs you chose to show on the screen show ways of presenting data that is clean and easy to understand. Looking at your additional links would also be a great way to familiarize yourself with the process.
Nice tutorial Austin! I ended up using Google Sheets for my midterm project on data visualizations for this class because I found it easier to manipulate data with than Flourish or OpenRefine. There are a lot more capabilities built into Google Sheets than meets the eye.
This is a great simple tutorial for Google Sheets graphs! I used Sheets for many of my graphs in high school, and the process I remember is pretty much exactly the same as what you write out, which is good. It’s probably easier to use Sheets for simple sets rather than Flourish, so it’s good to know how to use both. Maybe as one extension, you could display the setting for chart and axis titles, but it’s also pretty easy to find that on your own.
This was a great tutorial, Austin. Google Sheets is an incredibly powerful tool for data interpretation. Functions like LINEST and calculating Sxx values are crucial for complex quantitative data analysis and simple data visualization. I’ve been using a lot of Excel this term for data analysis in my STEM classes, and it seems like every day I’m learning something new.
This is a super helpful tutorial! Breaking down Google Sheets into six clear steps makes data visualization feel way more approachable for humanities projects. I really like how you emphasized that the main goal is to tell a compelling story rather than just making a chart. Starting with simple data to demonstrate the workflow is a great idea before moving on to complex datasets. The extra resources you linked at the end are fantastic too!
Google Sheets is already very accessible, and I appreciate the work your tutorial does to make it even easier for users to learn how to use such a valuable tool! Many people know the basics of data in Google Sheets, but fewer know how to create visualizations within the site. I personally struggled with this in my first lab class at Carleton. I would have loved to have a tutorial like this instead of learning through lots of trial and error.