Schematic Diagrams

As with other kinds of diagrams, which stress the general or abstract over the realistic, schematic diagrams employ highly specialized, technical symbols to depict the workings of a sytem or apparatus, as shown in Figure 19.

Schematic diagrams should only be used to communicate with a technical and expert audience.

Flowcharts

A flowchart is traditionally defined as a detailed diagram of the operations or equipment through which material passes. But a flowchart can be any kind of schematic diagram which shows pictorially or by means of symbolic representations a sequence of operations for any process. A common form of flowchart depicts the sequence of subroutines and flow of information within computer programmes, as shown in Figure 20.

Timetables (Gantt charts)

Timetables, or Gantt charts, give a visual presentation of the relative timing of the separate tasks that make up a unified project. With just a glance at a timetable, a reader can ascertain the variety of tasks involved in a project and how the tasks are related chronologically, as shown in Figure 21.

There are a variety of software programmes you can use to generate and update your timetables automatically.

Practice

Use the following graphs and the vocabulary from the above tables to describe the movement of the various objects concerned.

1. 2008 World Clothing Sales

2. 2008 World Clothing Sales Percentages

3. Travel Expenses

4. 2007 Production and Distribution Costs Compared to Final Profit

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Language Note Referring to visuals

I'd like you to look at this ... Let's look at this ...

As you can see from this ... Let me illustrate, …

As this ... shows, ... As an illustration, ...

Describing Movement

	Verbs	Nouns
	increase rise grow go up climb soar rocket rally reach a peak reach a maximum peak	increase rise climb recovery jump surge peak
	fall drop decrease collapse slide plunge decline deteriarate go/come down dwindle plummet tumble crash slump bottom out reach a low point hit bottom	fall drop decrease collapse slide plunge decline deterioration
	remain stable/constant stabilise hold steady stay the same level off flatten off/out	stabilization stagnation leveling off trough
	fluctuate undulate	fluctuation undulation
	recover get better get worse	recovery upturn downturn