Typically, the independent variable is on the x-axis, and the dependent variable on the y-axis. In a scatter graph, both horizontal and vertical axes are value axes that plot numeric data. Adjust the axis scale to reduce white spaceĪ scatter plot (also called an XY graph, or scatter diagram) is a two-dimensional chart that shows the relationship between two variables.How to organize data for a scatter chart.Do you want to see how the two sets are related to each other? The scatter plot is the ideal graph choice for this. When looking at two columns of quantitative data in your Excel spreadsheet, what do you see? Just two sets of numbers. In this tutorial, you will learn how to do a scatter plot in Excel to create a graphical representation of two correlated data sets.