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Teaching Case — What a Cut Bar Baseline Looks Like

The same three quarters drawn twice is impossible in one panel, so this is the cut version alone — and the engine's own warning about it is part of the figure. A deliberate teaching artefact: open it to see what a truncated baseline does to a nine per cent spread, with the sentence explaining it printed underneath rather than left for a reviewer to say.

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Quarterly units shipped1 bar series over 4 categories: Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4. y from 100 to 130 — Units shipped.Quarterly units shippedDeliberately drawn on a truncated baseline — see the note · 1 series · 4 pointsShipped: 110Shipped: 118Shipped: 121Shipped: 119Q1Q2Q3Q4100110120130Units shipped (thousands)The bar baseline is 100, not zero. A bar encodes quantity by its length, so a cut baseline makes small differences look large — this figure overstates every comparison onit.This is what the engine says about the figure above, and it is the point of the template. The real spread is nine per cent; on this baseline it reads as a threefold rise. Deletethe y limits line to see the same data honestly.

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title: Quarterly units shipped
subtitle: Deliberately drawn on a truncated baseline — see the note
y: Units shipped (thousands)
y limits: 100 .. 130
grid: y

bar "Shipped": Q1 110, Q2 118, Q3 121, Q4 119

note: This is what the engine says about the figure above, and it is the point of the template. The real spread is nine per cent; on this baseline it reads as a threefold rise. Delete the y limits line to see the same data honestly.