Graphics are used in textbooks as part of the language of the discipline, as in math or economics,or as study aids. Authors use graphic aids to (26)_____ and expand on concepts taken up in the text because graphics are yet another way of portraying relationships and (27)_____ connections.
Graphics are used extensively in natural sciences and social sciences. Social scientists work with statistics (28)_____ data, and the best way to present these statistics is often in graphic form. Graphics are included- not merely as a means of making the information easier for the student to grasp, but as an integral part of the way social scientists think. Many textbooks, (29)_____ those in economics, contain appendixes that provide specific information on reading and working with graphic material.
Make it a practice to (30)_____ attentively the titles, captions, headings, and other material connected with graphics. These elements (31)_____ and usually explain what you are looking at. When you are examining graphics, the (32)_____ questions to ask are (a)What is this item about? and (b)What key idea is the author (33)_____?
One warning: Unless you integrate your reading of graphics with the text, you may make a wrong assumption.(34)_____, from a chart indicating that 33 percent of firstborn children in a research sample did not feel close to their fathers, you might assume that some dreadful influence was at work on the firstborn children. However, a careful reading of the text (35)_____ that most of the firstborn children in the sample were from single-parent homes in which the father was absent.
