Plotting a Point in the Coordinate Plane
Alright so right here what you're looking at this is the coordinate plane.
It has an x-axis and it has a y-axis. Now you can kind of think about this as
Battleship when we go to plot a point. They're going to give us an x-coordinate
and a y-coordinate, and together we can take those two things and plot a point
somewhere. The important thing to know is that coordinate points are always "X
comma Y" so in this one negative 3 comma 2, negative 3 is the x portion and 2 is
the y portion. So this is telling us on the x axis go to negative 3. So if I come
here what's the negative 3 is right here. Don't plot anything yet, but this is
negative 3. Next it tells us to go up to 2 on the y-axis so here's 2, here's
negative 3 for the x, 2 for the y. Those things are going to meet right here. This
one has an x-coordinate of negative 3 and a y-coordinate of positive 2. So I can
just plot a point there. That's done. Looking at this guy here, once again, the
X comma Y so X first then Y. This says go over to 4 on the x-axis and then it
might help to read this as go over 4, go down 6 because it's a negative 6. Over
four down six it's gonna take you right here. So this is the point (4, -6)
because it's 4 on the x-axis and negative 6 on the y-axis. Just kind of
like battleship. I'll go ahead and do another few examples just to kind of
prove my point. So plot the point 5 comma 0. Same idea it's always X than Y you
don't have to worry about that changing. So it says to go over to 5 on the x-axis
so here's the x-axis over to 5 right here, but the y part is 0 which means
you're not going up or down. You're just gonna stay where you are.
All you have to do is plot the point on the x-axis and there it is. On the other
hand if you had something like (0, -8) it's still X then Y. This
says don't go over any on the x-axis. So you would always start at, we call this
the origin. You'd start at the origin, but instead of going left or right at all
you want to just stay where you are. The Y portion tells you to go down eight
so if I go down eight I'm gonna be right here. This is the point (0, -8). Just two more quick examples. The point
(-6, -3), once again is X comma Y. I'm going on the x-axis
back to negative six so this is negative six and then the Y portion tells me to
go down three so that puts me right here this is the point (-6, -3).
This last one is kind of a nice trick one. The x and the y coordinates
are both zero so starting at the origin which is right here go nowhere to the
left or right so we stay where we are and go nowhere up or down so we stay
where we are. This point right here that's the point (0, 0) so we also
call that the origin. Alright, and that's all you need to know about
plotting points. Just remember it's X first and then Y, and then play it just
like it's Battleship and you'll do great.