Table of Contents

• Prequiz...
• 1: The Case of the Confusing Axes
• 2: Choose your x and y carefully
• 3: Practice labelling the axes
• 4: Next step: ranging the axes
• 5: Practice ranging the axes
• 6: Next step: scale the axes
• 7: Practice determining labelled tick distance
• 8: How to scale axes
• 9: Finally, fill in the axes
• 10: Final Words of Wisdom & Some Graph Paper

Practice labelling the axes

Now that you know what goes on the what 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. 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, its 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" varible 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!