Pick a point in the center of your paper to be the origin of the graph, or the place where the x-axis and y-axis intersect. The coordinates at this point, when coordinates are written as (x, y), are (0, 0). Your values are measured against this point.
Draw a line horizontally through the origin from one side of the paper to the other as your x-axis. The line should be along the line of the graph paper. You want to the axes to be squared to the lines on the graph paper to make plotting your points easy and intuitive. Put an arrow mark at the end of the line on the right side, indicating that the numbers will continue on in the same fashion as they are on the graph.
Draw a line vertically through the orgin, running the length of your paper from top to bottom to be your y-axis. Again, make sure to draw the line flush with a line on the graph paper. Your orgin should be squared to the boxes on the graph paper. As with the x-axis, place an arrow indicator on the topmost part of the y-axis line.
Write the label of your x-axis underneath or off to the side of the horizontal line. Indicate the units of measure in parentheses. Make tick marks along the x-axis where the units fall. For example, if you are measuring time against cups of coffee sold in your coffee shop, place a tick mark every other box on the graph paper until you have 12 total. If you run out of space, adjust your interval. Each tick mark represents a month in the year --- label them as such.
Do the same for the y-axis, making sure the numbers written on the line correlate with your data. Staying with the example, if you sell up to 1,000 cups of coffee in your busiest month, make sure to have 1,000 as your highest point on the y-axis. Divide your intervals from there based on the amount of graph boxes between 1,000 and zero.