Case Study 6: Creating Graphics for a Report Background

You work at a non-profit lobbying firm as an assistant to Felicia Ortiz, Senior Data Analyst. Ms. Ortiz has been tasked with putting together a report on the US government's research and development expenditures. You conducted research at Ms. Ortiz's direction and provided her with a table of the top four categories of expenditures and the top three agencies in each category (Document 6.1).

"This is great stuff," Ms. Ortiz tells you. "However, some of the people who will read this report might get a better sense of this if they saw the data graphically, rather than in a table like this."

Assignment

In addition to the table, Ms. Ortiz wants to include some graphics in this report. She asks that you take the data in the table and produce:

• 2 different graphics that compare total federal R&D funding in 2018 and the total funding request for 2020.

• 2 different graphics that compare defense and nondefense R&D funding in either 2018 or the funding requests in 2020.

You may use whatever program/software you wish. However, you may find that translating the information in the table into an excel file might be the easiest way to produce graphics based on this data set.