We live in an era of television, smartphones, and tablet computers that have the ability to feed us visual information 24 hours a day. This new technology makes it not only easier to access visual information but also to create it in the form of a chart, table, graph, or infographic. For readers, these kinds of visuals are very helpful because they can help us understand complex data more quickly and easily. In fact, a graphic may be used to

• summarize a text,
• explain the relationship between ideas,
• emphasize important ideas, and
• create visual interest.

In the next section, you’ll learn more about pie charts or circle graphs. Watch the following video to see how one teacher uses pie charts to convey data about the fresh-cut flowers she keeps in her classroom.

You probably encounter charts, graphs, tables, and graphics more often than you might think, so being able to interpret them is important. In this lesson, you will learn how to understand the data found in charts and graphs, and at the end of the lesson, you will practice what you have learned.