Scribd
Upload
13 views7 pages

05 Venn Diagrams

Uploaded by

kk
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
13 views7 pages

05 Venn Diagrams

Uploaded by

kk
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 7

Venn diagrams

We’ve seen how we can express data in a two-way table, and then
translate that data into bar and line graphs. But we can also express data
from a two-way table in a different visualization called a Venn diagram.

Let’s say we’re baking sugar cookies for our family for Christmas. Like any
good baker would, we want to categorize our cookies by making a chart
that describes how many of each kind of cookie we have. Here’s a picture
of all of our sugar cookies:

The ones with the red section are dipped in red frosting. The ones with the
white dots are covered in white sprinkles. As we can see, some of our

36
cookies have both frosting and sprinkles, and some don’t have either
frosting or sprinkles.

Let’s apply what we already know and represent this data in a two-way
table. We’ll go ahead and include totals as well.

Sprinkles No sprinkles Total

Frosting 4 5 9

No frosting 3 4 7

Total 7 9 16

A Venn diagram representing this data might look like this:

Let’s walk through this. The red circle represents the cookies with frosting
and the gray circle represents cookies with sprinkles.

37
• Because we put a 5 inside the red circle but outside the gray
circle, it means there are five cookies that have frosting but no
sprinkles.

• Because we put a 3 inside the gray circle but outside the red
circle, it means there are three cookies that have sprinkles but no
frosting.

• Because we put a 4 inside both circles in the middle, it means


there are four cookies that have both frosting and sprinkles.

• Because we put a 4 outside both circles in the corner, it means


there are four cookies that don’t have either frosting or sprinkles.

From the Venn diagram, we can also see that there are

• 5 + 4 = 9 total cookies with frosting,

• 4 + 3 = 7 total cookies with sprinkles,

• 5 + 4 + 3 = 12 total cookies that have at least frosting or sprinkles


or both, and

• 5 + 4 + 3 + 4 = 16 cookies total

Notice that all of these numbers match the data in the two-way table.

So when we construct a Venn diagram, we put the number of items that


only meet one condition in one circle, we put the number of items that
only meet the other condition in the other circle, we put the number of
items that meet both conditions in the middle where the circles overlap,

38
and we put the number of items that meet neither condition outside of all
the circles but inside the box.

Variations of Venn diagrams


We can also construct Venn diagrams with circles of different sizes, where
the size of each circle is proportional to the number of items it represents.

So if we take the Venn diagram we made earlier for the cookies, we could
adjust the circles so that the ratio of the frosting circle to the sprinkles
circle is 9 : 7, since there are 9 cookies with frosting, and 7 circles with
sprinkles.

We can also create Venn diagrams with more than just two circles. For
instance, suppose we asked students about their favorite kind of pet, and
collected the following data.

39
• 2 students like dogs, but not cats or birds

• 3 students like cats, but not dogs or birds

• 1 student likes birds, but not dogs or cats

• 3 students like dogs and birds, but not cats

• 5 students like dogs and cats, but not birds

• 4 students like cats and birds, but not dogs

• 6 students like dogs, cats, and birds

• 7 students don’t like any kind of pet

Even though there are three kinds of pets in this survey, dogs, cats, and
birds, we can still construct a Venn diagram that models student
preferences.

Let’s use a brown circle for students who like dogs, a blue circle for
students who like birds, and black circle for students who like cats.

40
From the diagram, we can see that,

• Because we put a 2 inside the brown circle but outside the black
and blue circles, it means 2 students like dogs only.

• Because we put a 3 inside the black circle but outside the brown
and blue circles, it means 3 students like cats only.

• Because we put a 1 inside the blue circle but outside the brown
and black circles, it means 1 student likes birds only.

• Because we put a 3 inside the overlap of the blue and brown


circles but outside the black circle, it means 3 students like dogs
and birds, but not cats.

41
• Because we put a 5 inside the overlap of the brown and black
circles but outside the blue circle, it means 5 students like dogs
and cats, but not birds.

• Because we put a 4 inside the overlap of the blue and black circles
but outside the brown circle, it means 4 students like birds and
cats, but not dogs.

• Because we put a 6 inside the overlap of the blue, brown, and


black circles, it means 6 students like birds, dogs, and cats.

• Because we put a 7 outside all three circle circles in the corner of


the Venn diagram, it means 7 students don’t like any kind of pet.

42

You might also like