Hey folks, It turns out that I sent out last week’s newsletter a week earlier than I should have. I had every intention of posting a critique video on Monday and doing a livestream on Wednesday. Alas, I didn’t totally have control of my schedule and neither video got up. Regardless, I’m glad I sent the newsletter out last week because it got me going. Inertia is a powerful thing. If we never start - even if it’s a false start - we will never get going. Rest assured that the videos will come...
9 days ago • 4 min read
Hey folks! I’m excited to be firing up the newsletter and YouTube feed again for the academic year. I hope you all had a great summer and were able to get a lot done while enjoying the opportunity to rest a bit. This summer I was able to finally resubmit and publish a manuscript I’ve been working on for a few years to rarefaction. This is now my third paper on rarefaction. Don’t worry, it’s the same story. If you are analyzing microbiome data, please use rarefaction. This paper raised a few...
16 days ago • 4 min read
Hey folks, Earlier this week, those of us in the US celebrated Memorial Day. For many, this marks the unofficial start of summer. I suppose the clock is now ticking until Labor Day, which is the unofficial end of summer. Let me be the jerk to tell you that you have 100 days left to accomplish all of your summer goals. I suspect that for many of you writing papers and putting together conference posters and talks are on your list of goals. Generating attractive visualizations of your data is...
5 months ago • 4 min read
Hey folks, I’ve been getting asked to give more talks about data visualization and my experiences critiquing visualization. It’s been a lot of fun to engage with live audiences. I enjoy learning about their experiences, motivations, and limitations. As much as I love this newsletter and the content I post to YouTube, it’s clear that it isn’t a substitute to talking to people without the filter of email or a chat box. So, if you’re interested in working with me on an individual or group level...
5 months ago • 5 min read
Hey folks, The more I peruse the literature, the more I see that researchers need help designing figures to help tell their stories. I don’t just mean the mechanics of creating a figure in R, Python, Prism, or Excel. Rather, if someone had a box of dry erase markers of various colors and they had to give a talk without any slides, what would they draw to tell their story? I don’t mean to trivialize the difficulties. It’s hard! There are many figures I’ve published that I wish I could have a...
6 months ago • 5 min read
Hey folks, I appreciated the emails I received from people after last week’s newsletter. I hope that even if people didn’t agree with what I had to say, it was thought-provoking. Regardless of how a plot is made - R, Prism, Excel (gasp!), or AI (oh my!) - we need to train our eyes and sense of taste to make the most compelling visualization of our data. If you’re interested in working with me on an individual or group level to achieve this goal, let me know. I am offering consultation...
6 months ago • 3 min read
Hey folks, If you’ve watched any of my livestreams when someone asks why I don’t get ChatGPT or something to do a task for me, you probably saw a pained expression come across my face. Part of me dies every time someone tells me that they used some LLM chatbot to solve a problem. I have many reasons for despising the fascination with AI-based tools. I even wrote a commentary that I submitted to mBio in the fall of 2024. Yes, I wrote it. By hand. Then I typed it. No really, I typed it on a...
6 months ago • 3 min read
Hey folks, It has been great to see the high level of engagement with my weekly critique videos on YouTube. I have really enjoyed making them and have learned a lot about current practices in data visualization. The one problem with these videos is that they’re a bit like an autopsy. We can figure out what went well or what didn’t work in a published figure. But we can’t do much to improve the published figure. What if we could do critiques before submitting our papers, preparing a...
6 months ago • 6 min read
Hey folks, This week I want to share with you a figure that resembles many a type of figure that I see in a lot of genomics papers. I’d consider it a data visualization meme - kind of like how you’re “required” to have a stacked bar plot if you’re doing microbiome research or a dynamite plot if you’re publishing in Nature :) This figure was included in the paper, “Impact of intensive control on malaria population genomics under elimination settings in Southeast Asia” that was published...
7 months ago • 4 min read
