Draw a table, a large rectangle or square, on a piece of paper using a straight edge and a writing utensil. Divide the table into a grid with columns and rows. Leave enough space in each column to record results and include descriptions. Add the title of your experiment above the grid.
Set up the data table based on your experiment by asking yourself how many columns you'll need to record all the data based on the steps required to conduct the experiment. Divide the table into eight rows, for example, if your experiment was to find how high a ball bounced when dropped from eight different heights and add five columns if you tested five different types of balls.
Title each column with bold lettering to make it stand out from the rest of the information in the table. Title the far left column, for example, "Height" and list all the heights from which the balls were dropped. Title the columns to the right with the type of ball being dropped, such as "rubber ball," "tennis ball" and "golf ball." In other words, the column at the far left will list the independent variables and the columns to the right will represent the dependent variables. Add a column at the far right for the average results of each independent variable.
Record your observations in the table with as much detail as required to effectively describe the results of the experiment.