Using XY Scatter Charts to Plot Pairs of Data Points in Excel 2007:-


Figure (given below) shows a table of average January temperatures for selected U.S. cities. There is no trend or pattern to this data.



(When this data is plotted on a column chart, there is no pattern to the data.)

What are the likely causes of variability in January temperature? You might theorize that the most likely cause would be distance from the equator. In the Figure (given below), a new column B shows the latitude of each city. This dataset is perfect for an XY scatter chart. The latitudes in column B represent an independent variable. The temperatures in column C represent a dependent variable. A scatter chart plots one data marker for every pair of latitude and temperature data. In this case, the latitude will be plotted along the x-axis, and the temperature will be plotted along the y-axis.



(You can plot latitude and temperature on a scatter chart to understand the relationship between the values.)

The chart in the above Figure shows a relationship between latitude and temperature: as latitude increases, temperature decreases. You can therefore say that latitude and temperature are inversely related.