A3 - Geographic literacy
basic ANALYTIC skills
Written Documents
When reading an article try to do the following things:
Graphs, Charts and Maps
When trying to analyze or comment on a graph, chart or map do the following:
When reading an article try to do the following things:
- highlight the main arguments
- pick out facts which support a particular argument
- evaluate the validity of evidence - who wrote it / who collected the data / how was the information collected - could it be biased?
- summarize the article into 4-5 bullet points to get the main points
Graphs, Charts and Maps
When trying to analyze or comment on a graph, chart or map do the following:
- read the title! This can often save lots of time in trying to determine what it shows
- read the axes of a chart or graph to see what data is being represented and in what increments
- read the key and scale on a map to see what the symbols or colors mean and how large an area is being represented (large scale maps miss off smaller details / small scale maps are hard to get an overall picture from)
- look for the overall pattern or trend - to sum up what it shows
- find the maximum and minimum data
- how is the data spread - clustered together or more dispersed?