I’m always worried about using too much jargon when labeling my graphs, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to top this title:
“Figure 5-9: Annual Intersextile Ranges in Budget Authority for Domestic Subfunctions, Fiscal Years 1951-2005”
I like the “fiscal years” bit–it’s a nice touch.
P.S. The actual content in the graph is interesting and important–as the author (Eric Patashnik) notes in the text, “year-to-year variability [in discretionary government spending on domestic items] declined significantly between the 1950s and the mid-1980s.” It’s all good stuff, just an amusingly jargon-laden title.
(Why bother giving a title)
Because journals often require them.
Related rant: Journals (esp. psych-type journals) also have this crazy format (figures and tables at the end of the paper) that makes it virtually impossible to read a to-be-reviewed paper without printing it out. For my own paper, I use latex so that I can flip a switch and make the paper human-readable. I will hold a party when this arcane convention, along with stipulations regarding figures, are done away with.
t's all good stuff, just an amusingly jargon-laden title:-)