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I've been getting questions from people about setting s.f. in the
data tables,<br>
how to set up the graphs, s.f. on the graph axes, etc. I've also
seen some early<br>
reports turned in for exp 1. I did show some graphs in lecture and
sent out<br>
e-mails about this before.<br>
<br>
We highly suggest you use Excel or a similar program to do tables,
calculations<br>
for those tables and graphs. I have discussed or will discuss much
of this during<br>
lecture but here's some of the information.<br>
<br>
You can find examples of good graphs at the link below. I showed
these in lecture.<br>
The first graph doesn't take up the full page since I had to shrink
it so I could write<br>
on it at the top and bottom. This graphs shows you choose points
from the best-fit<br>
line for use in sample calculations for slope (not your actual data
points). You will<br>
be doing linear fits this semester where you'll need the slope. The
2nd graph is a<br>
better example of what a graph should look like. It also shows an
example of when<br>
you have more than one set of data plotted. In that case you need a
legend and you<br>
can bring the legend inside the graph area to allow the graph to
spread out and<br>
occupy the whole page. You don't need a legend when there's only
one set of<br>
data plotted since your title should indicate what's being plotted.
<br>
<br>
<a
href="http://chemistry.osu.edu/%7Erzellmer/sample_graphs.pdf"><b>Sample
Graphs</b></a><br>
<br>
Make sure you graph uses the whole piece of paper and spread the
data out (good<br>
use of the axis) so it takes up most of the space of the graph.
Don't make the labels<br>
and titles huge (use 10 or 12 point font). <br>
<br>
There's also a link you can use to help get you started with Excel
if you've never<br>
used it before. It's a simple example for a density graph. Go to
the following link<br>
and you will find this, along with other useful links.<br>
<br>
<a
href="http://chemistry.osu.edu/%7Erzellmer/excel/excel.htm"><b>Using
MS Excel for Reports</b></a><br>
<br>
Many of my examples use an older version of Excel (Excel 2003). I
have a link<br>
explaining the major differences between it and the newer versions.
Again, click tabs,<br>
right-click, etc. and explore what it can do and where to find
things. There are Excel<br>
tutorials and videos all over the web (YouTube, Microsoft's web
site). If you aren't<br>
sure about how to do something after looking for help please ask me.<br>
<br>
You should set the margins for your graphs to zero in Excel and you<br>
want them to stay that way when you import the graphs into your Word<br>
document. One would think Word would do that automatically but it<br>
doesn't, instead resetting the margins to agree with those set in
Word.<br>
You don't want it to do this and then simply drag the graph to
expand<br>
it's size since it can distort things. You'll find another link at
the link<br>
above explaining how to change the margins and page orientation on a<br>
page in Word when importing another file into the Word document<br>
(e.g. importing a graph or table from Excel) so the margins
correspond<br>
to what's in the imported file.<br>
<br>
I always receive questions about how to set sig. fig. in tables and
graphs<br>
in Excel. You can't actually set the sig. fig. but you can set the
number of<br>
decimal places Excel displays in order to get the correct number of
sig. fig.<br>
I've explained this in at least one of the links on my web page at
the link about<br>
using MS Excel given above. There you will find several links. The
following<br>
one addresses formatting numbers in the tables<br>
<br>
<a href="http://chemistry.osu.edu/%7Erzellmer/excel/excel.txt"><b>Using
Excel for Calculations and Graphs</b></a><br>
<br>
If you format your data with the proper # of s.f. in your table and
then make<br>
your plot you should get the same # of s.f. on the axes for the
graphs.<br>
<br>
Dr. Zellmer
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