Introduction

The old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” is especially relevant in the 21st century. Our smartphones and computers are excellent at displaying graphs and pictures and a good graph can convey a ton of useful information. It is a useful and marketable skill to be able to make legible, easy-to-read, and beautiful graphs. Furthermore, in the current digital age with the rise of misinformation and fake news, it is useful to learn how to make correct and honest graphs so that when you encounter poor or misleading graphs, you are more likely to identify them as such.

In this chapter, we will explore how to make graphs in Excel, and what all good graphs have in common. In the next chapter, we will learn how to safely use Excel’s built-in mathematical modeling as an engineer.

The purpose of a graph is to help communicate data. Graphs are often much easier to read than a table with a lot of data points. Therefore, we need to keep in mind when creating a graph that the goal is to help communicate the information to the audience. Keeping in your mind what you are wanting to communicate is important when deciding what to graph and which graph to choose. That isn’t to say, you should force a grace to communicate misinformation to fit what you want it to say, but that you need to pick a graph that helps communicate what the data shows. Choosing the wrong graph or the wrong axes can lead people to conclude the wrong information or leave them confused about the data so it is important you learn the right way to make a graph and the right graph to choose. Communicating information effectively and appropriately based on your expected audience is an important aspect of being an engineer.

As mentioned above, this chapter will concentrate on how to make graphs in Excel. This will include learning the following: