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How to Write the X-Intercepts of a Function

With their variables and exponents, functions may look intimidating, but they are actually not that bad. A function can best be thought of as a box where x values go in and a unique y value comes out. This means that on an (x,y) coordinate plain, a function's graph can intercept the x-axis many times but the y-axis only once. If it crosses it more than once, it is not a function. This makes finding a function's x-intercepts one of the most useful tools for graphing a function

Instructions

- 1
  Find the x-intercepts by replacing y with 0 in your function and solving for x.
- 2
  Write the solutions for x in the format x=a next apart from your work for the problem so you can find them easily, for example, x=9 or x= -14/23.
- 3
  Convert these into coordinate format. As an intercept, x=9 represents the point on an (x,y) graph 9 units to the right of the origin and 0 vertical (y) units up or down, and so is not complete until it is written as such, (9,0). All x-intercepts should be written this way, even fractions, (-14/23,0).

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