Show Me the Numbers s a practical and commonsense guide that you can use in your business today and every day. – Jonathan G. Koomey, Ph.D.

That sums it up! Brendan Lynch suggested this book to me, and it has been a great help in enlightening me in the art of communicating statistics visually. I’ve learned any number of useful tips and guidelines for:

• When, where, and how to use charts
• when, where, and how to use graphs
• when, where, and how to use tables
• style guidelines for maximum effect
• how to determine the effectiveness of a given presentation
• and so much more

Additionally, the book is written such that it not only teaches you these things, but provides an easy to use reference for those times that you need to look up specifics.

Stephen Few, the author, present numerous “bad” examples, breaks them down and explains in detail why the example is bad, and then presents a “good” example in order demonstrate how it should be done. I must admit that in reading this book I was appalled to discover how many of the bad examples looked exactly like some chart, graph, or table that I have created and how few of the good examples looked like something I might create.

I am quite excited to revamp any number of my current reports and I’m actually looking forward to the opportunity to exercise my new found knowledge on future tasks. If you ever use these elements in reports or presentations I highly advise reading this book, even if you are “good” at it – it never hurts to improve!

ISBN #: 0-970601-99-9 

Recommended?: Yes