Book Reviews

Books applicable to the broad field of program evaluation will be reL'iewed. IHrile EP willcont inue to have individual titles reviewed; a nell' interest is reL'iews that illuminate similaritiesand differencesin intent , philosophy, and usefulness ofgroups ofbooks. Persons with suggestionsfor books to be revlc....cd or those who wish to submit a review should contact Barbara Searle ,9-1025th St., N.IV., Apt. JUs, lI&shingtoll, DC 20037, for specific instructions. In general, are, 'ieLv ofan individual book should not exceed four double-spaced typewritten pages. Groupsofbooks may require additional length.

Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.Cheshire,CT:GraphicsPress, 1983, 197 pp.

William S. Cleveland, The Elements of Graphing Data. Monterey, CA:Wadsworth, 1985,323 pp.

Calvin F. Schmid, Statistical Graphics. New York: Wiley-Interscience,1983,212 pp.

Reviewedby: Michael HendricksMHAssociates, Washing/on, DC

Quickly now-a picture is worth !l01Y many words? Well, like so manyquestions, the best answer is probably"It depends."Agood picture is wortheveryone of the proverbial 1,000 words-maybe even a few more. A badpicture,on theotherhand,mayneed J,000 wordsjust toexplain it.Fortunate­ly, these three books can teach us how to fill our evaluations with "goodpictures"(or "excellentgraphics," if you're going for tenure),although eachbook helps in a different way.

First,however, let's remember whywe usegraphicsat all. They havefourdistinct advantages over simply using words and tables: (1) Graphics canallow a larger quantity of data to be displayed and absorbed quickly; (2)graphicscan revealpatterns thatare notapparent in thetextor evenin a table;(3) graphicscan allow easiercomparisons amongdatasets; and (4) graphicscan havea muchstronger impact on our audiences. However, as these threebooks all point out, excellent graphics do not just happen. Graphical com-

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