Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I help people communicate data clearly with graphs. This post is motivated by a comment on my blog post Line Charts Are Not Always ...

You can make a bar graph in Excel by first selecting the range you want to depict, and then using the dropdown menu to select the desired chart.

Quadratic graph lines are U- or Ո-shaped, which is called a parabola. A linear graph can be drawn using only three points. A quadratic graph is a curve, so more points are plotted to support accuracy.