Excel Charts for Dummies

Sample survivorship curves

If the truth be told, we here at the Antisocial Network have very little patience with people who pretend they know something but are in reality ignorant. We especially dislike said people when they pretend to be knowledgeable because they are greedy and want to make some money. Surely you can understand? You don't? Well, let's look at an example, the Techwalla.com post "How to Make a Survivorship Chart on Excel" as written by someone claiming to be named Vera Leigh. You know, "Verily"? Truthful? Well, not so much this time...

The basic concept of a survivorship chart suggests that a user graphs number of survivors on the Y axis of a chart or graph against time on the X axis, such as is demonstrated in the image above. Leigh started out by attempting to describe such a chart, saying to,

"...use [Excel] to create a database of numbers that can be transformed into a chart reflecting survivor statistics from a disaster, disease or other event or condition. Microsoft Excel offers a variety of curve charts that are useful for translating numbers into an educational graphical representation of your data." Already we're a little concerned by someone who thinks in terms of "curve charts," whatever those are; not to mention the grandiose notion of "an educational graphical representation." Whatever the case, it's a reasonable assumption that Vera had little to no experience at charting data in Excel, given these instructions:

1. Enter your survivorship data in cells A1 and down.
2. Press "Ctrl" and the "A" button at the same time.
3. Click the "Insert" tab, followed by the "Line" icon. Select a style of curved line graph.

According to Ms. Leigh,

"Excel will convert your data into the curved line graph. The graph will appear on your screen."

Sorry, Vera, it won't. You see, you can't build a chart or graph in Excel unless you have two columns of data, one for the X axis and one for the Y. So if you really want to chart survivorship, you'll need to,

1. Enter the time periods in column A and the corresponding survivorship figures in column B
2. Select the two columns.
3. Click "Insert" and choose a scatter plot.

Now Excel will build a plot of the survivorship, with time on the X axis and rate of survival on the Y axis. If you do it the way our Dumbass of the Day says to, you are not going to get a line at all...

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