how do you find the equation of a line of best fit? please help!!

Question

anonymous · Answer

Do you have a graph?

anonymous · Answer

yes

anonymous · Answer

Exactly what do you need help with?

anonymous · Answer

i dont know what steps to do in order to find the equation of the line of best fit

anonymous · Answer

look for the y-intercept first. If the equation is in the form y=mx+b, b is the y-intercept, which is the point the line crosses the graph

anonymous · Answer

-5.4

anonymous · Answer

Next look for the slope, m, which is $$\frac{y2-y1}{x2-x1}$$

anonymous · Answer

do i get 2 ploted points?

anonymous · Answer

If you have plotted points, then you can substitute them into that equation for slope

anonymous · Answer

after that do i just plug the slope and the y-intercept into the equation?

anonymous · Answer

if you know the slope and the y-intercept, you can identify the graph

anonymous · Answer

ok thank you so much

anonymous · Answer

np

anonymous · Answer

:)

amistre64 · Answer

the mean of your xs and the mean of your ys will be a point on the line of best fit

$$(\bar x,\bar y)$$ is on the line so we just need to determine a good slope to use

amistre64 · Answer

i cant recall how the average slope is obtained; personally I just use excel to calculate the slopes and pick the average fromthe interquartile range ..... but thats not "proper" :)