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A correlation is a relationship between the two variables in a given experiment. This is often obtained from a graph. If the gradient (slope) of a graph is positive (i.e. the graph slopes upwards) we can say there is a positive correlation. If the gradient is negative, we can say there is a negative correlation between the variables. If a straight line goes through the origin of a graph (point 0.0) and the gradient is positive, we can say that the variables are directly proportional to each other. Just because two factors correlated well and there is a good line of best fit line does not necessarily mean that one thing is causing the other to increase or decrease.