<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<font face="serif">Class, I spent a lot of time grading yesterday.
During that time I had a chance to look over the graphs you
submitted in your last lab report. Graphs are an important TOOL
in scientific analysis and deserve the time to be prepared well.
In the upcoming labs I will be paying a lot of attention to your
graphs. Here are some pointers.<br>
<br>
</font>
<ol>
<li>Each graph should be either COMPLETELY computer generated or
COMPLETELY drawn by hand. Since you all told me in class on
Wednesday that you had access to Excel, I am expecting that the
graphs are completely computer generated and that all of the
components on the graph will be drawn by the computer. Don't
get me wrong, hand drawn graphs are a beautiful thing. Come
visit me in Willet and I'll show you examples in some of my
books. But think about this. If you draw part of a graph
with the computer and then fill in the missing components with a
hand drawn line or axis labels you are conveying to the reader
that you are really incompetent. You are now in college and
many of you are preparing for a professional careers in
medicine, engineering, or the sciences. It's time to step up
your game and start producing professional looking graphs. If
you need help - ask!<br>
</li>
<li>Each of your graphs should be on a page by itself. In rare
instances I will tell you to combine graphs on a page, but in
general each graph should be on its own page and should take up
the entire sheet of paper. It's terrible to get an 8.5x11 sheet
of paper with a 2x2 inch graph in the upper left hand corner.
I prefer that your graphs be in LANDSCAPE format and take up the
entire sheet of paper. Again, Excel will allow you to do this.
If you need help - ask!</li>
<li>Both the X and Y axes should be labelled with units. In this
case you first graphis Y axis will be "ln(rate) M/s" and your X
axis will be "ln([I<sup>-</sup>]) (M)"</li>
<li>Your data POINTS should be plotted as POINTS (or some other
symbol). There should be NO LINE CONNECTING THEM. If
necessary, change the automatically generated legend label
(Generally it's somthing like Series 1) to a more meaningful
label. <br>
</li>
<li>In this graph you do need to plot the best fit line through
the data points and also place the equation of the best fit line
somewhere on the plot. Excel calls this a "Trend Line" and you
will find a tutorial on how to plot trend lines in Excel in the
Lab section of the class web page. While the tutorial is
somewhat dated, the basic ideas still work in newer editions of
Excel. If you can't figure out how to do this -- then ask! I
will be checking to see if the slope from your best fit line
agrees with what you record on your report sheet.</li>
<li>Take a final look at your graph, if it needs a title, add
one. If you need to clean up the data labels so that they make
more sense, do so. Do any final formatting to make the graph
look professional and clean.</li>
<li>Print it!<br>
</li>
</ol>
<p><br>
Please let me know if you have any questions!<br>
</p>
<font face="serif"> </font>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Andrew J. Pounds, Ph.D. (<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:pounds@theochem.mercer.edu">pounds@theochem.mercer.edu</a>)
Associate Professor of Chemistry and Computer Science
Mercer University, Macon, GA 31207 (478) 301-5627
</pre>
</body>
</html>