HOW TO DRAW A BOX PLOT
ON A GRAPHING CALCULATOR
Once you have stored data in a list, you can use your calculator to draw a box plot (also called a box-and-whisker plot) that will help you visualize the data. The directions below are for the TI-83 and TI-83+, but can easily be adapted to other models.

The first step is to enter your data into a "list." Press the key to bring up the following screen:

Since the EDIT menu is already selected, as is 1:Edit on that menu, simply press to go the following screen:

Enter your data, one by one, by using the number keys on your calculator, pressing the key after each piece of data.

Once the data have been entered, you are ready to draw the box plot. The first step is to "turn on" statistical graphing. Press (the second function on the key). This should bring up the following screen:

If 1:Plot 1 is in the Off mode (as it is in the picture above), press the key to bring up the following screen:

With the cursor flashing over the word On, press the key to turn on Plot1. Next use the down arrow to move to the type of plot you want, in this case the middle one in the second row. To get to that one, use the right arrow key to wrap around to the second line of types. When the flashing cursor is over the middle one in the second row, press the key.

To see the box plot, we need to tell the calculator that we are doing statistical graphing, rather then the more traditional xy-coordinate plane graphing. To do this, press the key, and then press the down arrow to move the cursor over ZoomStat (#9):

Press the key, and you should get the box plot you wanted:

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