HERE'S MY ADVICE ABOUT DRAWING DIAGRAMS.
Encourage pupils to draw what they can see, not what they think they ought to see.
Drawing in pencil is best, because they can rub out errors without making a mess.
They should draw clean lines, not fuzzy ones where they have had several goes at it.
Drawings should be large they should make best use of the space on the page, leaving room for labels.
When labelling, use a ruler to draw the label lines.In general, it is best to use pencil for the lines and the labels.
The label lines should actually touch the structure being labelled.
The labels themselves should be written in the space around the diagram, not on the diagram itself.
Don't use shading unless this really helps in some way.
TIPS ABOUT GRAPH DRAWING
Students should put the independent variable on the x axis and the dependent variable on the y axis.
Choose scales that make good use of the graph paper, so that any trend in the line is clearly seen. There is no need to begin at 0. For example, a cooling curve with a y axis running from 0 degrees C to 80 degrees C is not sensible, if the minimum temperature reached is 20.
The scale should be easy to read, so it should not go up in 3s, for example, because it is impossible to read intermediate values.
The scale should always be fully labelled, with units.
On a line graph, plot points using a small, neat cross.
On a line graph, where there is a clear trend and we have good reason to believe the results should lie on a straight line or a smooth curve, a best fit line can be drawn.
On a line graph, in Biology we sometimes need to draw a straight line between points, using a ruler. We do this when we aren't sure that the line is likely to be straight or a particular kind of curve.
Give a graph a heading.
