Table of Contents

• Prequiz...
• 1: The Case of the Confusing Axes
• 2: Choose your x and y carefully
• 3: Practise labelling the axes
• 4: Next step: ranging the axes
• 5: Practise ranging the axes
• 6: Next step: scale the axes
• 7: Practise determining labelled interval distance
• 8: How to scale axes
• 9: Finally, fill in the axes
• 10: Summary

Practise labelling the axes

Now that you know what goes on which axis, try labelling the axes. In general, your label should have two parts: what you measure, and how you measure it, or units. Units should be in parentheses (brackets). Like this: "distance (cm)" or "time (minutes)" or "eyesight left (%)".

Putting in the units allows your reader to interpret the graph. For example, if you are graphing the grade received on a test vs. the time spent studying, it will make a big difference whether the x-axis reads "time studying (hours)" or "time studying (minutes)"! Likewise, it's hard to interpret the graph on the left, because you don't know what the units are:

 

Below, I've written the "x" variable label, but you need to think of a possible "y" variable label. There are many possibilities, so think of one, then click "compare" to see whether you're on the right track. In some cases the units are not very obvious and might take some thinking.

Did you pick some unit other than grams/day for growth of mice? That's OK -- there are a lot of different ways to measure the same thing. BUT, that's also the reason that it's important to tell people HOW you measured your variables!