INFORMATION DESIGN 6

THINK AND DISCUSS

Answers will vary. Possible answers:

1. The infographic shows the paths of NASA’s satellites, which circle around the globe daily collecting information related to land, ocean, atmosphere, solar radiation, etc.

2. In addition to infographics, information can be presented visually in graphs, charts, mind maps, diagrams, etc.

EXPLORE THE THEME

A 1. The infographic gives information about where each part of the car is produced and where the supplier’s headquarters is.

2. Answers will vary. Possible answers: Yes, I think it’s effective. I can clearly see the different car parts and which countries they come from. / No, this infographic feels too cluttered with text to me.

B convey; stand out; interpret (Note: An interpreter is someone who translates verbal information.)

Reading 1

PREPARING TO READ

A 1. downside

2. deliberately

3. vision

4. faulty

5. objective (Note: This is an adjective. The noun objective refers to a goal or an aim.)

6. neutral

7. misleading (Note: Both the adjective misleading(Paragraph E) and the verb mislead (Paragraph D) appear in the reading passage.)

B Answers will vary. Possible answers:

1. One downside is that it’s hard to know if the information is reliable.

2. Sometimes people post fake pictures to make themselves famous. Once, I saw a misleading picture of a man who said he’d climbed K2, but

the picture turned out to be fake.

C Answers will vary. Possible answer:

 Infographics explain information efficiently, which can be useful for explaining complex concepts in a business meeting or in class. Using infographics in news publications can help engage readers as the information is more interesting to look at.

D Answers will vary. Correct answer: c

UNDERSTANDING THE READING

A 2, 3, 6

B 1. Alberto Cairo says visual data is most effective when the information provides “spontaneous insight” / when the information is immediately

clear. (See Paragraph C.)

2. Charts make information look more credible or scientific. (See Paragraph D.)

3. when a graph presents faulty logic (Paragraph E); when the scale is inappropriate (Paragraph G); and when a graph is designed to influence a

point of view (Paragraph H).

4. Compared to traditional graphs, modern infographics use thousands of data points. (See Paragraph I.)

C a. 3 (Explanation: The y-axis (vertical axis) only goes from 40 to 55.)

b. 1 (Explanation: Temperatures are shown to have risen suddenly in the last hundred years.)

c. 3 (Explanation: The difference is actually only about 10 percent, but looks much larger.)

d. 2 (Explanation: The y-axis is performance; the x-axis is time.)

e. 3 (Explanation: The effectiveness of two drugs is compared.)

f. 1 (Explanation: The graph shows various information such as temperatures from different sources, the average temperature, and the time period.)

g. 2 (Explanation: Appearing on the cover has no direct effect on the athletes’ performance.)

h. 1 (Explanation: The red and blue lines can be compared against the black line showing the average temperature.)

D 1. b

2. c

3. d

4. a

E The scale is different—the first graph’s y-axis starts from 5.25 percent, while the second one starts from zero percent.

a. 1

b. 2

F Answers will vary. Possible answers:

 The infographic in Unit 4, Reading 2 (page 87) gives a very clear and objective description of the supervolcano under Yellowstone National Park.The infographic in Unit 5’s Explore the Theme section could be presented in a more interesting way. Also, the data may be slightly misleading since it may also include people who transited in the

city’s airport for one night without visiting the city.

DEVELOPING READING SKILLS

A 1. Paragraph E: Even though graphs may look credible, they can be misleading, especially if…

2. Paragraph F: So, although there may be a correlation between two events, that does not mean that one event has a direct effect on the

other;

3. Paragraph H: While he thinks this may be valid in advertising or PR, it’s not a good example of objective journalistic communication.

4. Paragraph H: Cairo believes that while designers may never be able to approach information in a completely neutral way, they should at least try…

B 1. a

2. b

3. b

4. a

C 1. c

2. a

3. b

Video

BEFORE VIEWING

A Answers will vary. Correct answer:

1. The colors represent the temperatures of the exoplanets. The sizes represent how big the exoplanets are.

2. the distance of the exoplanets from their star

B Both infographics use area/size and color to represent the details.

C 1. incidence

2. plot (Note: The verb plot here refers specifically to marking points on graphs, charts, etc.)

3. angle

4. strategy

WHILE VIEWING

A 2, 3, 4 (Explanation: Thorp mentions that we visualize data in order to make things simpler to understand and help us learn things we never knew. He also uses the Kepler project as an example of how data can be made more interesting when presented visually.)

B 1. suffered from cholera during the cholera epidemic in London

2.where people are flying to and from

AFTER VIEWING

A 1. when an infographic is attractive or impressive

2. when they learn something from the infographic

B Answers will vary. Possible answers:

 Reading 1: easy to understand, but not enough “ohh” as they weren’t very interesting to look at / “Just Landed”: a good balance of “ohh” and “ahh”; detailed information is not shown but we’re able to get a big picture view of world travel by looking at it

Reading 2

PREPARING TO READ

A 1. Publications, statistics

2. gestures, emphasize

3. Nevertheless

4. context

5. have to do with

6. universal, reliance

7. proposes

B 1. In my country, a common gesture to say “hello” is to wave at someone.

2. Some topics that have universal appeal include medical topics and environmental topics because these affect us all, regardless of nationality.

C Answers will vary. Possible answer: The color red reminds me of the big sign outside my supermarket, so it makes me hungry. The color green makes me think of nature.

D Answers will vary. Correct answer:

 differences in color, shape, and orientation (left-to-right or right-to-left)

UNDERSTANDING THE READING

A 1, 2, 5

B Answers will vary. Possible answers:

1. Not every culture associates the color green with money.

2. Red is used for positive monetary values in China, as opposed to in the west, where red is used for negative values.

3. the challenges of different font preferences and orientation of visuals

4. Visual layouts in China mirrors the Chinese written language. Both are complicated and contain a lot of information in a small amount of space.

5. He learned a lot about seeing things differently from his Portuguese colleagues.

C 1. c (See Paragraph E: Arabs write and read from right to left.) (Note: Traditionally, Chinese is also read from right to left, but this is not mentioned in the reading passage.)

2. b (See Paragraph C: You could see Chinese newspapers where stock market charts use green for negative values and red for positive ones.)

3. a (Explanation: It is implied in Paragraphs B and C that the color green is associated with money in the United States.)

4. b (See Paragraph G: His theory is that Chinese visuals are heavily influenced by Chinese writing: complex symbols with many elements compressed in a reduced space.)

5. a (See Paragraph H: The result: greater reliance on infographics—charts, statistics, and graphs—in American sports publications.)

6. c (See Paragraph D: In typography, Arabs prefer blade-like typefaces…)

D 1. a

2. e

3. d

4. c

5. b

E Answers will vary. Possible answer:

1. be based on sound logic

2. have an objective scale

3. be appropriate for your audience

4. be visually interesting

5. use simple typefaces

Additional guidelines:

takes cultural differences into consideration / not overly complex

F Answers will vary. Possible answers:

1. The publication (a newspaper) uses a few main colors such as orange, green, and red to differentiate the sections.

2. The Lifestyle section contains more images, while the Business section contains mainly text and charts.

Writing

EXPLORING WRITTEN ENGLISH

A (Note: Students only need to pay attention to the underlined phrase. The figure numbers were created for the exercise.)

a. 1

b. 5

c. 4

d. 3

e. 2

LANGUAGE FOR WRITING

B 1. four times

2. more than

3. twice

4. a third

5. less than

C Answers will vary. Possible answers:

1. Women and men both spend approximately two hours on social media on a typical weekend.

2. Men spend less than an hour reading during the weekend.

WRITING SKILL

D 1. a; 2. b; 3. b

E 1. b

2. a, d

3. a, b, d, e (Explanation: c is too general; f is not relevant)

WRITING TASK

A Answers will vary. Possible answer:

 Topic: People should eat insects instead of meat or fish.

 Reasons: insects have more protein; insects cause less waste; insects are cheaper to farm and use fewer resources

 Infographic: insects as protein source

B Answers will vary. Possible answer:

 Introductory Paragraph

 Thesis Statement: Eating insects instead of meat and fish is better because it is less wasteful while being equally nutritious.

 Body Paragraphs

 Reason 1: less wasteful

 Details: four-fifths of a cricket’s body can be used as food; half or less of fish, a chicken, or a cow is used

 Reason 2: packed with nutrition

 Details: high in protein, low in fat; good source of vitamins and minerals

 Concluding Paragraph

 Summary Statement: In addition to being less wasteful than regular meat sources, insects are very nutritious and are available all over the world.

REVISING PRACTICE

b, c, a

EDITING PRACTICE

1. Much of the animal is wasted: less than half is used for food.

2. A quarter of people spend more than four hours a day online.

3. As Figure 1 illustrates, approximately a third of the animal is wasted.

4. Two-fifths of the students study in the school library.

5. As Figure 3 shows, more than half of the class prefers to use their phones to take notes.