Mrs. Bolvin’s Easy Peasy Graphing Rules

If you get in the habit of following these rules every time you do a graph it will be a perfect graph every time.

1. Always hold you paper  .  Use all of the paper.

 2. The left column of the t-chart is graphed on the x-axis. The right column of the t-chart is graphed on the y-axis.

 3.  Put the title of the x-column along the horizontal axis. Put the title of the y-column along the vertical axis.

4. For a line graph, figure out what is the largest number you will have to graph on the x-axis.  Use the formula to figure out the scale on the x-axis (if your largest number is greater than the number of boxes, flip the formula over to get number of units/box)

Number of boxes (usually 80)

The largest # you have to graph on the x-axis

For a bar graph, determine the number of groups you will need to graph along the bottom axis., Use the following formula to figure out how wide each bar will be:

Number of boxes (usually 80)

Number of groups needed to graph on the x-axis

5. For the y-axis of either a bar graph or a line graph, find the largest number you will have to graph on the y-axis.  Use the following formula  (if your largest number is greater than the number of boxes, flip the formula over to get number of units/box):

Number of boxes (usually 100)

The largest # you have to graph on the y-axis

If the largest number is difficult to work with, round it up to a number that is better to work with.  For example, If you have 100 boxes going up the side, and your largest number was 3150, it would be easier to plot points if you rounded it up to 3200 or 4000.    

6. Plot your data.  For a line graph, use a small dot with a circle around it.  For a bar graph, make boxes the correct height and width. Put labels at the bottom to tell what each bar is and the maximum value of each bar at the top of the bar.  Make the adjacent bars noticeably different.

7. Give your graph a title.  It should be the title of the x-axis vs. title of the y-axis.