Entry: ADVICE ABOUT DRAWING SPECIMENS AND GRAPHS IN BIOLOGY Jan 16, 2008



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.

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