TBF Statement
Today's TBF features a common misleading tactic that is used when making visual graphs.
This is a graph that someone created to compare KFC's Chicken Twister to other fast food options.
True?: Yes, the calories for each bar appear to be accurate.
Intention? ...to make you think that the KFC wrap has a lot less calories than TBell, BKing, and Wendy's similar sandwiches.
False?:
A casual first impression of this graph is that the KFC wrap is possibly half the calories of other options. There is also the possible other effect that you think pizza and McD's are better than KFC by large margins too. Of course, this is silly, and the problem is that the x-axis is truncated to start at 590 instead of 0. The other sandwiches are only 10% more calories than KFC! Truncating the x-axis leads to the wrong conclusions.
Don't truncate axes! This is actually a problem for scientists publishing actual scientific articles too. They sometimes truncate graphs in similar ways! It might make their results look more significant than they actually are.
Moral of the story: when you create a graph, don't truncate axes just to make it "look better" or to highlight small differences. You might unintentionally create a visual that misleads your audience.