As a data professional, you have learned to use tools, crunch numbers, develop attractive charts or dashboards, and create engaging presentations. But how do you know if your conclusions are right? What if, after all this effort, your conclusions are weak or even plain wrong?

Data visualization can make data persuasive for your audience and for yourself—very persuasive! So much so that you may not realize that your thinking does not hold water upon closer scrutiny.

Unfortunately, learning software tools, programming languages, design strategies, or presentation skills do not shield you from making reasoning mistakes. You may have heard of or learned to recognize some statistical fallacies, but you may lack a coherent and cohesive framework to think about reasoning fallacies in data visualization systematically.

This is what I aim to provide you with Rhetorical Data Visualization (RhetVis).

RhetVis aims to make you a real data detective who can identify reasoning gaps and provide solutions when assessing and designing new data visualizations for yourself and others.

Using the RhetVis framework, you can identify and solve issues with 1) how data is collected/generated, 2) how data values are computed, transformed, and visualized, and 3) how data visualizations are framed using titles and other contextual elements.

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT

RhetVis includes five modules:

1. Introduction: Become familiar with the RhetVis framework.

2. Data-reality gaps: Spot gaps in how the data has been generated.

3. Data transformation: Spot issues with data selection, filtering, aggregation, etc.

4. Visual representation: Spot problems with how the data is represented.

5. Contextual factors: Become mindful of the framing effect of titles and other elements.

Each week, we cover two modules for a total of three weeks of work.

Each module includes:

- 45-60 min recorded video lectures: Learn the basics of each module.

- Lecture slides: Quickly review the course content.

- Quizzes: Test your knowledge, spot comprehension gaps, and obtain clarifications.

- 1.5 hours of live meetings: Discuss the main ideas and develop practical skills through group activities (using breakout rooms) and presentations.

- Printable cheat sheets: Quickly review and recall the main elements of the RhetVis framework.

- Reading material and resources: to dive deeper into the topics covered.

The course also includes a final mini-project to develop individually and present to the group on the final day of the course.

The course does not require any specific data processing or visualization tool. We will use Google Docs/Slides and drawing tools (paper, digital drawing apps, etc.).

WHO WILL BENEFIT MOST FROM THIS COURSE

- Data analysts and scientists who want to get stronger at reasoning with data visualization

- Visualization designers who know how to build engaging/beautiful/effective visualizations but lack the skills to evaluate the validity of their data arguments

- Data enthusiasts who want to become more skilled at critically evaluating the visualizations they encounter in the world

WHO THIS IS NOT FOR

If your main goal is to learn specific data visualization tools (Tableau, Power BI, etc.), specific programming languages, or how to create pretty/engaging visuals, this is not the course for you.

The course is also inadequate for people who want to work at their own pace and are not interested in interacting with others. The live meetings require everyone to be active and engage in discussions, conversations, and collaborative work.