In most data tables, the independent variable (the variable that you are testing or changing on purpose) will be in the column to the left and the dependent variable(s) will be across the top of the t...In most data tables, the independent variable (the variable that you are testing or changing on purpose) will be in the column to the left and the dependent variable(s) will be across the top of the table. You could not use a scatter plot to look at the relationship between number of children in a family and weight of each child because the number of children in a family is not a continuous variable: you can’t have 2.3 children in a family.