Language used in describing charts or graphs

1. Updated: 5 March 2019
ELC590
INFORMATIVE SPEECH
LANGUAGE USED IN DESCRIBING CHARTS OR GRAPHS
Examples of words or phrases used to introduce charts and graphs:
Introduction Topic Circumstances
This graph shows the sales of our products over 10 years.
The diagram outlines rates of economic growth between 1990 and 1996.
This table lists the top ten agencies in the world of tourism.
This pie chart represents the company's sales of our
various products
for this year in our sector.
This line chart depicts the changes in sales over the past year.
This chart breaks
down
the sales of each salesman In the past ten weeks.
Some words or phrases used to indicate movement:
Upward movement
(to) increase (to) boom/soar/climb
(to) rise (to) jump, (to) skyrocket
(to) push/put/step up (to) reach a peak, (to) peak
(to) extend, (to) expand (to) reach an all-time high
(to) go/be up (to) boom/soar/climb
(to) grow (to) progress
Downward movement
(to) decrease (a) cut, (a) reduction
(to) cut, (to) reduce (a) fall
(to) plunge, to plummet (a) downswing
(to) drop (off) (a) collapse (dramatic fall)
(to) go down (to) slump, (to) go bust
(to) decline (a) collapse (dramatic fall)
No movement
(to) hold ... constant (to) remain stable
(to) stabilize (to) stay constant
Change of direction
(to) level off (a) change
(to) stand at (to) stop falling/rising

2. Updated: 5 March 2019
Some words used to indicate the degree or speed of change:
Examples of expressions used to analyze facts and figures from charts or
graphs:
This was due to ...
This was the result of ...
This caused ...
This led to ...
This was due to ...
Examples of expressions used to make conclusions:
We can conclude that…
This clearly indicates that…
From this we can see..
In conclusion we can safely say…
The conclusion we can draw from this is …
We can derive several conclusions from this…
All the analysis points to …
To sum up….
Examples of expressions used to recommendations:
I recommend that…
One recommendation that can be made is…
An important recommendation that we should consider…
I can make several recommendations to help deal with this problem…
Several recommendations come to mind…
One important recommendation is that…