MathBench > Visualization

A Graphing Primer

Next step: scale the axes

Maybe you think we're done now, but we're not! We still need to figure out how to spread the numbers out between the smallest and largest. And this is very important: you need to spread those numbers out evenly!

graph with no units correct graph

 

And just as importantly, we want to make it easy on ourselves later on. If one box on the graph paper stands for 50 units, that will make our job easy, but if one box on the graph paper stands for 42 units, that would make our job difficult, when it comes to locating the dots on the graph.

graph with no units graph with no units

 

So think about how to spread out the numbers easily and evenly .

 

You want to try to end up with about 4 to 6 labelled ticks. Any more than this and your graph will be slow to produce and hard to read.

So, if your axis ranges from 0 to 200, put tick labels every 50 units.

If your axis ranges from 0 to 500, put tick labels every 100 units.

If your axis ranges from 0 to 125, put tick labels every 25 units.

... and so on.