The 5 things that every scientific line graph needs:
The title should describe what the graph is about. If you are graphing the height of a tree every month for a year, your title could be "Tree height every month for a year." If you are doing an experiment where you have a variable (something you're testing) and measurement of that change, you can follow this format "How (variable) affects (measurement)".
For example, if you're testing how much fertilizer is best for growing tall plants, you could have a title of "How the amount of fertilizer affects plant height."
The axes are the bold lines at the side and bottom of the graph. On the horizontal (x) axis, we put either time (if your graphing something over the course of time) or the independent variable (amount of fertilizer).
On the y axis is where we graph the measurements. On a distance/time graph, the y axis is distance because it's a measurement of how far you travelled. On the fertilizer graph, it's height.
To help people read our graphs, we need to make sure we add numbers to the different lines on the axes. These numbers need to be even and contain all your data. To do this, count how many lines split up your axis. Look at your largest number in your data. Divide that number by the number of lines. This should give you an idea of what number you need to count by on the axis.
For example, imagine the y-axis of your graph is separated into 10 lines. if you have measured the height of a tree and the biggest number is 45 feet, you can divide 45 by ten to see what number you should count by. The answer is 4.5, but since that number is hard to count by, you can use any number larger than 4.5. I would choose 5 as a counting number.
Once your graph is set up, you can begin plotting your data points.
5) All the dots connected in a line
Connect the dots. When you are done plotting your points, make sure to connect the dots with straight lines in order from left to right. It might look like a lot of spikes but that's ok.
