CREATING A PICTURE OF YOUR

DATA

Graphing

A graph is…

a picture of your data. Make sure it is a clear picture that helps your reader understand your data.

TAIL…elements of a good graph

T = title (must name the graph) A = axes (x and y axes for line graphs, bar graphs,

histograms, scatterplots, etc) I = intervals (fit your data to your graph using

intervals that make sense. AVOID BREAKS!) L = labels (titles for the axes otherwise we don’t

know what we are looking at!) 

Bar Graph-compare data elements

Double Bar Graph-compare two groups

Line Graph (continuous data)

Double Line Graph-compare 2 sets of continuous data

Circle Graph or Pie chart (compare to the whole)

Scatter plot-to show data patterns

Box and Whisker-shows outliers