Assessment & Research

Inserting Phase Change Lines into Microsoft Excel® Graphs.

Dubuque (2015) · Behavior analysis in practice

★ The Verdict

The offset formula in M (2015) still works, but newer templates do the job faster and add labels.

✓ Read this if BCBAs who build single-case graphs in Excel and want to know the history of phase-line tricks.

✗ Skip if Teams already using the 2017 or 2019 templates—no need to go back.

01Research in Context

What this study did

Dubuque (2015) wrote a how-to paper. It shows one way to lock vertical phase-change lines onto an Excel line graph.

The lines move with the plot when you add new data or resize the sheet. No extra drawing tools are needed.

What they found

This is a method paper, not an experiment. It simply gives the offset formula and step-by-step clicks.

How this fits with other research

Deochand (2017) and Fuller et al. (2019) both supersede this tip. They turned the same offset idea into ready-made templates that also add phase labels automatically.

Deochand et al. (2015) extends the idea. They tested the steps with graduate students and found the method easy to follow.

Lerner et al. (2012) is an older Excel guide, but for discounting graphs, not phase lines.

Why it matters

If you only need a quick phase line and you are on an old Excel version, the 2015 offset trick still works. For daily practice, grab the newer free templates from Deochand (2017) or Fuller et al. (2019) instead. They save time and add labels that stay locked to your data.

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Download the free template from Fuller et al. (2019) and skip the manual steps.

02At a glance

Intervention

not applicable

Design

methodology paper

Finding

not reported

03Original abstract

Microsoft Excel® is a popular graphing tool used by behavior analysts to visually display data. However, this program is not always friendly to the graphing conventions used by behavior analysts. For example, adding phase change lines has typically been a cumbersome process involving the insertion of line objects that do not move when new data is added to a graph. The purpose of this article is to describe a novel way to add phase change lines that move when new data is added and when graphs are resized.

Behavior analysis in practice, 2015 · doi:10.1037/h0100655