general graphing instructions, setting s.f. (decimal places) in tables and graphs, links

[robert zellmer]

The lab director, Tyler, sent out something about BAR.  This is something
in general about using Excel for making tables and graphs.

We highly suggest you use Excel or a similar program to do tables, 
calculations
for those tables and graphs.  I discussed some of this during lecture 
but here's
some of that information again.  While visiting some labs I saw some people
not doing the proper things.

Make sure your graph uses the whole page and spread the data out (good use
  of the axis) so it takes up most of the space of the graph.  Don't 
make the labels
and titles huge (use 10 or 12 point font).  You can find instructions 
for making good
graphs and examples of good graphs at the links below.

In the first link there are two graphs.  The one graph doesn't take up 
the full page
since I had to shrink it so I could write on it at the top and bottom.  
This graph
shows you choose points from the best-fit line for use in sample 
calculations for
slope (not your actual data points).  You will be doing linear fits this 
semester where
you'll need the slope.  The 2nd graph is a better example of what a 
graph should
look like.  It also shows an example of when you have more than one set 
of data
plotted.  In that case you need a legend and you can bring the legend 
inside the
graph area to allow the graph to spread out and occupy the whole page.  You
don't need a legend when there's only one set of data plotted since your 
title
should indicate what's being plotted.

***Sample Graphs* <http://chemistry.osu.edu/%7Erzellmer/sample_graphs.pdf>

The link below takes you to the departmental page which gives instructions
about lab reports and graphing.  At the bottom of the page there's a 
link to an
example of a good report with a graph.

***Chem Lab Report - Departmental Guidelines for Writing a Lab Report* 
<https://uglabs.cbc.osu.edu/gc-labreport/>

There's also a link you can use to help get you started with Excel if 
you've never
used it before.  It's a simple example for a density graph.  Go to the 
following link
and you will find this, along with other useful links.

*Using MS Excel for Reports* 
<http://chemistry.osu.edu/%7Erzellmer/excel/excel.htm>

Many of my examples use an older version of Excel (Excel 2003).  I have 
a link
explaining the major differences between it and the newer versions. 
Click tabs,
right-click, etc. and explore what it can do and where to find things.  
There are Excel
tutorials and videos all over the web (YouTube, Microsoft's web site).  
If you aren't
sure about how to do something after looking for help please ask me.

You should set the margins for your graphs to zero in Excel and you
want them to stay that way when you import the graphs into your Word
document.  One would think Word would do that automatically but it
doesn't, instead resetting the margins to agree with those set in Word.
You don't want it to do this and then simply drag the graph to expand
it's size since it can distort things.  You'll find another link at the link
above explaining how to change the margins and page orientation on a
page in Word when importing another file into the Word document
(e.g. importing a graph or table from Excel) so the margins correspond
to what's in the imported file.

I always receive questions about how to set sig. fig. in tables and graphs
in Excel.  You can't actually set the sig. fig. but you can set the 
number of
decimal places Excel displays in order to get the correct number of sig. 
fig.
I've explained this in at least one of the links on my web page at the 
link about
using MS Excel given above.  There you will find several links.  The 
following
one addresses formatting numbers in the tables

*Using Excel for Calculations and Graphs* 
<http://chemistry.osu.edu/%7Erzellmer/excel/excel.txt>

If you format your data with the proper # of s.f. in your table and then 
make
your plot you should get the same # of s.f. on the axes for the graphs.

Dr. Zellmer
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