Graphs are an ever increasingly important tool used in our everyday lives, and yet there is a lack of research in this area. This is especially true in relation to the construction of qualitative graphs. Based on this gap in the existing literature, I decided to investigate first year undergraduate students that were enrolled in a physics module aimed for non-physics majors. My main focus was their thought process when asked to draw a qualitative graph representing a physics scenario. I developed a series of questions which were issued to students over the past two years. These questions all followed the same format: students were given a diagram of a hypothetical physics experiment and a piece of text describing the situation. They were also given a partially completed graph and then asked what the completed graph would look like. FInally, they were asked to explain their reasoning. The following text showcases my detailed analysis of the students’ responses. I studied all aspects of the collected data, from the spacings they drew on the axes of their graphs, to the language they used in their explanations of why they had drawn the graph as they had. I varied both the context of the experiment (ranging from everyday scenarios to more abstract physics) as well as the way in which the experiment was described (ranging from a brief description to a more detailed explanation). My research shows that both of these factors, context and level of detail, have a strong effect on students’ ability to draw the correct graph. I also found that students who made explicit reference to their graph when explaining it, were more likely to have drawn the correct graph than those who did not. On the other hand, students who mentioned “time” or “friction” were more inclined to draw an incorrectly shaped graph.