Question

When evaluating good graph what are the things you look for

Answer 1

Here are the things I look for (can you find them in my Boyle’s Law graph below?).

1. A title that describes the experiment.

2. Axes that are

   (a) Highlighted (drawn darker than the rest of the lines)

   (b) Scaled (in units of 1, 2, or 5 or multiples of 10 of these numbers) to fill the whole graph area

   (c) Labelled with the variable name and units. Dependent variable on vertical axis; independent variable on horizontal axis.

3. A graph area containing

   (a) Horizontal and vertical grid lines from the major axis divisions

   (b) Plotted points marked by a special symbol (often a circle)

   (c) A line of best fit that goes as close as possible to all the points without necessarily going through any of them