The top ten worst graphs

With apologies to the authors, we provide the following list of the top ten worst graphs in the scientific literature. As these examples indicate, good scientists can make mistakes.

1.	Roeder K (1994) DNA fingerprinting: A review of the controversy (with discussion). Statistical Science 9:222-278, Figure 4 [The article | The figure | Discussion]
2.	Wittke-Thompson JK, Pluzhnikov A, Cox NJ (2005) Rational inferences about departures from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. American Journal of Human Genetics 76:967-986, Figure 1 [The article | Fig 1AB | Fig 1CD | Discussion]
3.	Epstein MP, Satten GA (2003) Inference on haplotype effects in case-control studies using unphased genotype data. American Journal of Human Genetics 73:1316-1329, Figure 1 [The article | The figure | Discussion]
4.	Mykland P, Tierney L, Yu B (1995) Regeneration in Markov chain samplers. Journal of the American Statistical Association 90:233-241, Figure 1 [The article | The figure | Discussion]
5.	Hummer BT, Li XL, Hassel BA (2001) Role for p53 in gene induction by double-stranded RNA. J Virol 75:7774-7777, Figure 4 [The article | The figure | Discussion]
6.	Cawley S, et al. (2004) Unbiased mapping of transcription factor binding sites along human chromosomes 21 and 22 points to widespread regulation of noncoding RNAs. Cell 116:499-509, Figure 1 [The article | The figure | Discussion]
7.	Kim OY, et al. (2012) Higher levels of serum triglyceride and dietary carbohydrate intake are associated with smaller LDL particle size in healthy Korean women. Nutrition Research and Practice 6:120-125, Figure 1 [The article | The figure | Discussion]
8.	Jorgenson E, et al. (2005) Ethnicity and human genetic linkage maps. American Journal of Human Genetics 76:276-290, Figure 2 [The article | Figure 2a | Figure 2b | Discussion]
9.	Cotter DJ, et al. (2004) Hematocrit was not validated as a surrogate endpoint for survival amoung epoetin-treated hemodialysis patients. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 57:1086-1095, Figure 2 [The article | The figure | Discussion]
10.	Broman KW, Murray JC, Sheffield VC, White RL, Weber JL (1998) Comprehensive human genetic maps: Individual and sex-specific variation in recombination. American Journal of Human Genetics 63:861-869, Figure 1 [The article | The figure | Discussion]

Honorable mention: A really bad table

Paik MC (2004) Nonignorable missingness in matched case-control data analyses. Biometrics 60:306-314, Table 5 [The article | The table | Discussion]

Resources on good and bad graphs

• Wainer H (1984) How to display data badly. The American Statistician 38:137-147
• Carr DB, Nusser SM (1995) Converting tables to plots: A challenge from Iowa State. Statistical Computing & Statistical Graphics Newsletter 6:11-18
• Gelman A, Pasarica C, Dodhia R (2002) Let's practice what we preach: Turning tables into graphs. The American Statistician 56:121-130
• Tufte E (2001) The visual display of quantitative information, 2nd edition. Graphics Press.
• Robbins NB (2004) Creating more effective graphs. Wiley