Graphing a Simple Linear Function

In this post, we present an example of how to graph a linear function in the xy-plane from scratch.

Example

Graph the line described by the function y = -5x + 1.

Solution:

The function y = -5x + 1 is of the form y = mx + b. This indicates the graph is a straight line. For this reason, we can graph the line with only two points that we can connect to form the line.

Select any values of x and plug them into the given function to obtain the corresponding values of y. For this example, we use the values x = -1 and x = 1. 

The table below summarizes the results above.

Trace a line connecting these two points to obtain the graph for the function y = -5x + 1.