Pre-Calculus All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 10

Picturing Basic Trig Functions and Reciprocal Functions

IN THIS CHAPTER

Plotting the sine and cosine parent graphs

Picturing tangent and cotangent

Charting secant and cosecant

“Graph the trig function … .” This command sends shivers down the spines of many otherwise brave mathematics students. But there’s really nothing to fear, because graphing functions can be easy. Graphing functions is simply a matter of inserting the x value (from the domain) in place of the function’s variable and solving the equation to get the y value (in the range). You continue with that calculation until you have enough points to plot. When do you know you have enough? When your graph has a clear line, ray, curve, or what-have-you.

You’ve dealt with functions before in math, but up until now, the input of a function was typically x. In trig functions, however, the input of the function is usually , which is basically just another variable to use but indicates an angle measure. This chapter shows you how to graph trig functions by using different values for .

In Chapter 8, you use two ways of ...