A key figure in data visualization is Edward Tufte. Penrose has several of his books:
Tufte, Edward R. Beautiful Evidence. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 2006.
---. Envisioning Information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 1990.
---. Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 1997.
The edwardtufte.com website also has information, figures, and videos on visualization in the sciences and the arts.
Flowing Data. Nathan Yau's collection of interesting visualizations.
Storytelling with Data's blog gives visualization tips and lessons.
Graphic Detail, the visualization blog of the Economist magazine, looks at graphs and charts related to the news.
WTF Visualizations shows problems with visualizations from the media and around the web, and briefly sums up the problem.
Junkcharts shows problems with visualizations and analyzes them in some depth.
Tools for data analysis and visualization include statistical software packages such as SPSS and R. On the Whitman campus, SPSS is available in computer labs in Maxey. R is an open-source software platform, and you can find more about it at the R Project
For a great overview of data visualization best practices, see the visualization by Justin Lincoln, Lynne Vieth, and Dan Martensen, which was coded in D3.
Be aware of the implications of how your data will be shared on the Web before you use web-based analysis and visualization tools. Some data sources permit the uploading of their data to online or cloud-based services, and others do not. IRB specifications may also restrict what you may share via web-based analyses/visualizations and how you may share it. In short: understand and follow the terms of use of any data that you analyze and visualize, especially when the analysis or visualization takes place online.
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