Graphing

1. Draw your axes (Horizontal and vertical lines)

2. Label your axes (with units). The x-axis is horizontal and the y-axis is vertical. When graphing from a table of values, remember that the x-values are always in the left-hand column and the y-values are in the right-hand column.

3. Add your scale. a) Determine the range of values for your axis (difference between maximum and minimum values). Many graphs have a minimum value of zero. (If you do not start your axis at zero, then you will need to use a **break** which shows that numbers are missing.)

b) Take the range and divide it by the number of squares. This is the minimum value of each square. Round it up to the nearest multiple of 2, 5, or 10. If the number is much less than one, divide the number of squares by the range and round **down** to the nearest 2, 4, or 5. This will be the number of squares per unit.

c) Label the axis. Usually, one labels every second or fifth value to make the graph look neater.

d) Repeat for the other axis.

4. Graph your values.

5. Add a title which describes the data.

It was Rene DesCartes, a French mathematician, who first came up with the idea of representing pairs of data using points on a plane.
 * Cartesian Axes**

The x-axis runs horizontally (left and right) and measures a point's horizontal position on the plane. The x-axis is used to represent the independent variable in science experiments.

The y-axis runs vertically (up and down) and measures a point's vertical position on a plane. The y-axis is used to represent.

A point's position can be represented by the **co-ordinates** (x, y).

The point where the two axes meet is called the **origin**. The co-ordinates of the origin are (0,0).

The point where any graph meets the y-axis is called a **y-intercept**. Any y-intercept will have the general co-ordinates (0, y) since the x-coordinate along any point of the y-axis is 0.

The point where any graph meets teh x-axis is called an **x-intercept**. Any x-intercept will the have the general co-ordinates (x, 0) since any point on the x-axis will a y-coordinate of 0l