Drawings are often made to illustrate data from two kinds of source, in one case from measurements, in the other from a mathematical function or computer program. In some ways this distinction is not important to us, especially since artificial measured data is often generated by computer simulation. In both cases a sequence or set of data values is to be represented graphically. However, there are a number of different genres of drawing, and we can crudely categorise them as either plots or charts.
In a plot, values are drawn against others, the most common being the simple 2-dimensional graph. Styles of plot include connected lines, points, impulses and filled areas. More elaborate features include statistical error bars. Graphs also comprise axes, grid lines, tic marks, legends and labels.
In a chart, values are displayed in a more disconnected fashion are used more for collections than sequences of data. The types of display are more varied than with plots. They include pie charts and histograms, and are often seen in newspapers and reports.