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You have had some experience now with different ways to combine numbers and work with equations
and expressions. You have also hopefully seen a number of different kinds of graphs and charts that
have been used to display data. You have probably seen bar graphs, stem‐and‐leaf plots, circle graphs
(or pie charts), and maybe even a box‐and‐whisker plot or two.
There is a very important thing that all these graphs have in common: they all take a single list of data
and organize it in a way that is easy to read and interpret. Notice the emphasis on the word “single”.
They only measure one thing at a time. This one thing is called a variable.
Definition: A variable is a characteristic or value that is being measured. Variables are usually values
that are unknown and they are represented most often by a single letter (n, x, y, etc.).
For example, suppose you asked 100 people what their favorite color was and put this data in a bar
graph, pie chart or other type of graph. Your graph will probably have a number of different categories
(blue, green, black, yellow…etc.).
Despite all the different categories, you are only measuring one variable in this situation: color.
So what happens if you want to measure more than one variable at a time? Say you went to those same
100 people and asked them about two things: their age and their shoe size.
Now you are going to have two lists of numbers, one for age and one for shoe size. How are you going to
display this information?
You could make separate graphs for each one and compare them side by side but what would that
actually show you? Usually the purpose of measuring more than one thing is to see whether or not
there are any relationships between the variables. We want to be able to compare the information.
In order to do this, we need to have a method for putting both pieces of information into the same
graph. This is where coordinates come in. We need a graph that can display two variables at the same
time.
In order to do this, we need to have two different number lines, one for each variable. Each of these
number lines is called an axis.
The common way to put two number lines on the same graph is to draw one vertically and one
horizontally:
vertical axis
horizontal axis
We call this a coordinate plane. More specifically, this is known as the Cartesian Coordinate Plane.
The name comes from a famous mathematician named Rene Descartes (pronounced day‐Cart) who is
given the credit for coming up with this concept of two dimensional graphing (though the Greeks were
using grid systems a long time ago). As the story goes, he was lying in bed and noticed a fly sitting on the
ceiling. He realized that he could count the tiles on the ceiling as a way to describe where the fly was.
For example, from the corner of the room, the fly could be 8 tiles in and 6 tiles up.
6
5
Start Counting
4
From The
Corner 3
2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8/1
This concept of measuring takes two different things and measures them at the same time. This new
way of visualizing data opened us up to a creative new method for graphing and looking at equations
and relationships.
Every location on this grid can now be defined by two numbers, one to represent the horizontal line and
one to represent the vertical line.
In the fly example, the location was 8 units in and 6 units up so we could write this as the point (8, 6).
Definition: A coordinate point is a location on a coordinate system that is defined by two values x
and y where x is the value on the horizontal axis and y is the value on the vertical axis.
Coordinate points are always written in parenthesis ( ) with the x value first and the y
value second like so: (x, y). These are also often called ordered pairs.
Let’s take this idea back to our survey about age and shoe size. Let’s start by making our coordinate
system with two lines, one for age and one for shoe size.
Shoe
Size
Age
Now we can go through our list of data and start to make points to represent each person we surveyed.
Let’s say that the first person we surveyed was 20 years old and had a shoe size of 12.
First, we would move along the age‐axis (the horizontal one – the x‐axis) and find the value of 20.
From that point, we would move up the shoe‐size‐axis (the vertical one – the y‐axis) until we reached 12.
We would draw a dot here to represent the ordered pair (20, 12).
22
20
18
Shoe 16
Size 14 (20, 12)
12
10
8
6
4
2
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60
Age
You could continue this process until you had one dot for every person you surveyed. If you asked 100
people then you would end up with 100 points on your graph. Let’s scale that down a bit and do an
example with 5 people. Below is a table of values and their coordinate graph.
Shoe Coordinate
Name Age
Size Point
Anna 8 5 (8, 5)
Billy 27 15 (27, 15) 22
20
Carol 50 8 (50, 8)
18
Diego 36 11 (36, 11) Shoe B (27, 15)
16
Erik 15 9 (15, 9) Size 14
12 D (36, 11)
10 E (15, 9)
8 C (50, 8)
6
4
2 A (8, 5)
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60
Age
We now have a graph that shows us two pieces of information at one time. By looking at a single point,
you can see both their age and their shoe size. This would not be as simple to find using a bar graph,
circle graph or any other single‐variable graph.
If you notice on this graph, we are only using positive numbers since our data will never give us negative
age or negative shoe size. If we did have a situation with negatives, we can just expand the number lines
as far as we need to go.
Positives
Positives
Zero
Negatives
Negatives
There are a couple things to notice about this graph. The first is to note where zero lies. The number
lines cross at zero, or the coordinate point (0, 0). This point has a special name, the origin.
Notice also that the lines create 4 separate regions. These regions are called quadrants. They are
numbered 1 – 4 moving counter‐clockwise beginning with the top right. (For some reason they are
usually written with Roman numerals I, II, III, IV)
Quadrant I (+, +)
Quadrant II ( ‐ , +)
Horizontal Positive
Horizontal Negative
Vertical Positive
Vertical Positive
Origin
Quadrant III ( ‐ , ‐ ) Quadrant IV (+, ‐ )
Horizontal Negative Horizontal Positive
Vertical Negative Vertical Negative
So let’s look at some examples. Below is a table of points and which quadrant they fall in. Go through
each point and make sure you understand why they have been plotted where they are.
Remember, when graphing a point (x, y) the first number is always the horizontal axis and the second
number is always the vertical axis.
X‐Coordinate Y‐Coordinate y‐axis
Name Quadrant
(Horizontal) (Vertical)
A 5 7 I A
B 2 ‐3 IV
C ‐1 2 II
D ‐8 ‐5 III F
E 3 ‐3 IV
F 0 4 NONE C
G ‐6 0 NONE
H 0 0 NONE G H I x‐axis
I 7 0 NONE
J 0 ‐1 NONE J
B E
Notice that the scale in D
the graph is counting by 2
on each axis.
Take a close look at how these points were plotted. The first number tells you how far to move left and
right. The second number tells you how far to move up and down.
Notice how we dealt with negatives. Remember the two number lines cross at their zeroes creating that
middle point (0, 0) called the origin.
If you look at the horizontal number line (the x‐axis) the positives are to the right of the origin and the
negatives are to the left of the origin.
If you look at the vertical axis (the y‐axis) the positives are above the origin and the negatives are below
the origin.
For example, look at point D with coordinates (‐8, ‐5). This means we moved left 8 spaces and down 5
spaces from the origin.
Compare this to point A with coordinates (5, 7). This means we moved right 5 spaces and up 7 spaces
from the origin.
Notice also what happened when there was a zero. This means that you move zero spaces in that
direction. If one of the coordinates is zero then the point will fall directly on one of the number lines
since it will move only left and right or only up and down (or it could be the origin which stays at 0).
You are also probably wondering how the whole quadrant thing works. The first five coordinate points
above make sense but then the rest say “NONE” for their quadrant.
In order for a point to be in a certain quadrant it has to actually be in the quadrant, not on the edge of it.
If a point falls exactly on either the x‐axis or the y‐axis then we don’t include it in any quadrant.
Point A (‐3, 5) is in
A (‐3, 5) Quadrant II.
Point B (4, 0) is not in
any quadrant since it
falls on the border of
I and IV
B (4, 0)
Those are the basics for plotting points on a coordinate grid. Here are the big ideas to remember:
• The Cartesian Coordinate System is the fancy name for a coordinate grid with two number lines.
• The horizontal number line is called the x‐axis. The vertical line is the y‐axis.
• Both of the number lines have a positive side and a negative side. BE CAREFUL!!.
• All coordinates are written with parenthesis and are often called ordered pairs.
• Ordered pairs are always written with the horizontal value first ‐ ( x, y ). WATCH OUT HERE!!
• The origin is the center of the graph, the point (0, 0). All plotting starts from this point.
• The coordinate grid is split into four sections called quadrants.
• Quadrants are labeled with Roman numerals I, II, III, IV and are labeled counter clockwise.
• If a point is directly on the x‐axis or y‐axis, it doesn’t get included in any quadrant.
• It’s usually a good idea to label your points with a letter and the numerical values (x, y) to help
stay organized and communicate clearly.
Good luck and happy graphing!
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