Mrs Jiménez’s Graphing Rules and General Steps for Graphing
1 – Draw your x and y axes with a ruler in PENCIL so that it takes up at least three quarters of the sheet
of graph paper – bigger is better. Leave a few lines (boxes) at the top, on the left side, and on the bottom.
Often holding the paper landscape instead of portrait is better.
2 – Title your x axis with the independent variable and title your y axis with the name of your dependent
variable.
3 – Title your graph at the top as such: “Figure #1:…” Good titles usually tell how the x and y variables
relate such as “the effects of x on y” or if the experiment was not looking at the effect of x on y perhaps
you will have to figure out how x and y variables relate and put that as the title.
******4 – Determine an appropriate scale for your x axis. An appropriate scale has several features. Most
importantly, its intervals are evenly distributed. This means that every box on your scale must equal the
same amount. Secondly, don’t squish your scale – make sure that you pick a scale that will take up more
than half of your axis. No “breaks” allowed unless told otherwise. It is too easy to use them improperly.
5 – Do the same for your y axis scale. All the same rules apply. The x axis scale and the y axis scale,
however, can certainly be different as long as every box on the x means the same amount on the x and
every box on the y means the same amount on the y.
6 – When working with numbers, always label your origin as zero (0).
7 – Extend the lines of each labeled box so that it is clear which number of the scale refers to which box.
This may be confusing so we will go over it in class.
8 – If you are making a line graph, you are now ready to plot your points. Carefully, plot each point. Then
connect each point to each other, but… NEVER connect the points to the origin unless one of your data
points was (0,0).
9 – If you have more than one set of data, you will have more than one line. Don’t connect the lines to
each other. Each will stand on its own.
10 – If you have more than one set of data and thus you have more than one line, you will need to use
different colors to represent these different data sets. You must construct a key that tells us which color
represents which data set.
11 – If you are making a bar graph, each bar must be the same number of boxes wide. Also, each bar must
be the same number of boxes away from each other. This includes equal distance between the origin and
bar #1 and bar #1 and bar #2. The only exception to this rule is when you are asked to draw a histogram in
which there are no spaces (boxes) at all to separate between bars.
12 – If you have multiple sets of data on a bar graph, this will be discussed in class. It will appear as a bar
graph/histogram combination. A key must also be used, as described above, but this time it will be
different colored bars as opposed to different colored lines.