How to create a scatter plot in Excel

This video walks you through how to create properly formatted scatter plots in Microsoft Excel and explains when scatter plots are the best choice for your data. Scatter plots are used to examine relationships between two continuous variables, where each data point represents a single observation plotted according to its true x‑ and y‑values. Using scientific data examples, this tutorial shows how to organize summary tables so Excel correctly interprets the x‑axis, how to create scatter plots with one or multiple data series, and how to avoid common graphing mistakes. You’ll learn how to format scatter plots for scientific use by removing chart titles and gridlines, adding clear axis labels with units, including legends when multiple data series are present, adding axis tick marks, and adjusting font size for readability. Examples include bacterial population growth over time and comparisons of body mass and heart rate across different taxonomic groups. By the end of the video, your scatter plots will be ready to copy into a Word document and paired with a proper figure caption. The video also briefly discusses when you might choose to add lines to a scatter plot and how scatter plots differ from line graphs.