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Thinking in Diagrams

Chapter 12: Choosing the Diagram

Drafted for Aryeh's edit.

For chapter 12: Choosing the Diagram

Timing

Section titled “Timing”
  • Reading the chapter: about 13 minutes, its 1,999 words of prose at 150 words a minute. Not counted in those minutes: 7 figures, 3 understanding checks, the reading exercise and the exercises.
  • A session: 55 minutes, the exercises set for it. (estimate)
  • Afterwards: 65 minutes, the exercises set for then. (estimate)

Common misreadings

Section titled “Common misreadings”
  • A type picked by habit, or by the situation, not by the question. In the chapter’s Common misreading, the hives are drawn as all six types, one per question. In the understanding check about a laundry basket, A stock & flow diagram is a wrong choice, lacking the target and the measured value.
  • A diagram drawn where a sentence would do. The bad diagram, a holiday fund, has nothing wrong in its marks, and one sentence holds all of it. In the understanding check about a chess club, a sentence answers when the club can buy new clocks; in the reading’s third question, No: five stocks are too many for a sentence is a wrong choice.
  • An accumulation drawn as an effect. Sterman and Booth Sweeney (2007) found that most MIT graduate students they tested believed greenhouse gas concentrations could stabilize while emissions exceeded removal. In CD 03’s type choice, A causal loop diagram reads steady emissions as steady carbon dioxide in the air.
  • One drawing taken to answer every question. In the reading’s second question, The whole slide, since every variable is on it is a wrong choice: no path through about 110 variables can be followed by eye.

Exercises to set

Section titled “Exercises to set”

CD 01 to CD 05 and CS 12 each open with a type choice, made before the lab opens. The session runs from a rescue team, a wish to move and the carbon dioxide in the air to a published slide; a games console, a canal and the case come afterwards.

For a session

Afterwards

A closing session follows CS 12: on the case’s page, opened in the browser that saved their attempts, each learner’s twelve drawings show side by side; 30 minutes (estimate).

Sources

Section titled “Sources”