Determine the information that needs to be included in the table. For example, if creating a table to plot points on a graph, you will need a column for the x axis and the y axis. If you are solving a word problem about how many miles a car will travel on a Friday, if it doubles the amount of miles traveled each day starting with 50 miles on Monday, you would need columns for the days of the week and the number of miles traveled.
Draw a t-chart on a piece of paper. Label the left side with the first data label and the right side with the second data label. Using the car traveling example, the left side would be labeled "Day" and the right side would be labeled "Miles Traveled."
List the variables under the data heading on the left side that correspond to that heading. For example, if you are measuring data by day, you would list the days of the week. If creating a table to plot points on a graph, list the points on the x axis in equal intervals.
Use the information in the data table to find the values to put in the second column. With the traveling problem, write 50 miles on Monday, then double it and write 100 miles for Tuesday and so on to find that the car drove 800 miles on Friday.
Determine what type of data you are going to record. For example, if you want to find out which foods your classmates like best, you must determine which foods to include and determine whether you are going to separate your data by any other variables, such as boys and girls.
Create the table with columns for each data set. For a table to record which foods your classmates like best arranged by boys and girls, create a column for food, boys, girls and totals.
Create rows for each specific data point. With the food table, create a row for each type of food. For example, you might have rows for pizza, tacos, hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, and ice cream.
Interview classmates about the topic you're gathering data for. Place a tally mark in the appropriate column of the table to record the data. For example, if a girl says her favorite food is tacos, place a tally mark in the column labeled "Girls" and the row labeled "Tacos" and a tally mark in the column labeled "Totals" and the row labeled "Tacos."
Come to a conclusion about the data or create a graph based on the data. For example, on the food table, if the most tally marks in the totals column are in the pizza column, you might write, "This table shows that pizza is my classmates' favorite food." If girls have the most tally marks in the ice cream column, you would write, "According to the data, the girls in my class like ice cream more than any other food."