Educator

Graphing in the Coordinate Plane

• Coordinate Plane: grid formed by intersection of two number lines
• y-axis: a vertical number line
• x-axis: a horizontal number line
• Quadrants: the axes divide the plane into four quadrants
• Origin: where the axes intersect
• Ordered Pair: (x,y), gives the coordinates of a point‘s location
• x-coordinate: the position to the right or left of the y-axis (x, y)
• y-coordinate: the position above or below the x-axis (x, y)
• Remember that in an ordered pair, the x term always come before the y: (x, y). An easy way to remember this is that the letters are in alphabetical order.