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PART 2: NARROW YOUR TOPIC, FIND ONE DATASET AND ONE STORY

TLDR

  • Due March 24
  • Read about when to shift or bail
  • Narrow your topic
  • Find at least one dataset and one human story
  • Write a project pitch

READ ABOUT WHEN TO SHIFT OR BAIL

The data vis studio The Pudding has a wonderful article Continue, Pivot, or Put It Down. In it, Amber Thomas talks about how to decide when an idea is working, when it needs to be shifted, and when it's just a dud. It's a really great bit of writing on a problem we all face, even (or especially) when working on professional projects.

No need to turn anything in for this, but it should be helpful with this and future projects.

NARROW YOUR TOPIC

Last week, you spent time following research rabbit holes, hopefully ending up somewhere unexpected and interesting. This week, you should think about what you found and narrow your topic. You'll want to end up with something broad enough that you have room to explore and change direction but specific enough so you can get started without feeling overwhelmed.

Some ways to think about this that might be helpful:

  • Look at the "what do I want to know more about" questions you came up with
  • Is there a specific story, person, or experience you can focus on? (More on this in a bit...)
  • If you found historical topics, is there a connection you can draw between that time and today? Something that has changed over time (or hasn't)?
  • Pick a decade and view your topic through that lens

This can shift as you work on the next section, but this narrowing will help focus that research.

FIND ONE DATASET AND ONE HUMAN STORY

With a more refined focus for your project, you should find two things related to your topic: a dataset and a human story.

The dataset should connect as closely to your topic as possible, though it may also shift the idea you had. For this project, you'll be making three separate visualizations: a single dataset might be interesting enough on its own (or can be broken up into sub-datasets) but you might also want to find complementary data too. Definitely keep track of any other datasets you find, in case you need them laster.

You should also find a story about or by a person or people involved in your topic. This doesn't have to be super long or in depth but the idea is to weave in first-person accounts and experiences. (This is a new addition to this assignment: I want you to try hard to find something, but if you come up empty let me know.)

While csv data will still be the easiest to work with (and the most common), other formats like json will also be possible. If you find data in a format other than these, feel free to reach out and we can talk about whether you'll be able to use it!

If you want, try putting your data into Sheets/Excel for a quick-and-dirty visualization, that's greate but not required, though it may help you understand your data better. As before, keep careful track of your sources for publishing your data at the end.

WRITE A PROJECT PITCH

Write up a short pitch for your project. Keep it tight, declarative, and specific! Imagine you're pitching this to an editor or client.

Your pitch should include (at least) the following, about 1–2 sentences each:

  • A description of your topic
  • What your dataset includes and where it came from
  • A summary of the human story you found
  • What you find exciting, interesting, or important about this topic

TURNING EVERYTHING IN

Copy/paste your pitch text into Canvas, or upload as a PDF. That's it!