Find the intercepts, plot them on the coordinate plane, and connect them with a straight line.
Practice makes perfect
We will graph the following equation by finding its intercepts.
9y=3x+18
Finding the x-intercept
Think of the point where the graph of an equation crosses the x-axis. The y-value of that (x,y) coordinate pair is 0, and the x-value is the x-intercept. To find the x-intercept of the given equation, we will substitute 0 for y and solve for x.
The x-intercept is the point (-6,0). Let's continue with the y-intercept.
Finding the y-intercept
In the same way as above, now consider the point where the graph of the equation crosses the y-axis. The x-value of the (x,y) coordinate pair at the y-intercept is 0. Therefore, substituting 0 for x will give us the y-intercept.