Final answer:
The length of a story in pages is dependent on the number of words in the story because the number of pages needed increases with the word count.
Step-by-step explanation:
The length of a story in pages (p) is dependent on the number of words (w) in the story. This relationship exists because the more words you have, the more pages it will take to fit them, given a constant font size and page layout. This makes the number of pages a dependent variable because it varies based on the number of words in a story, which is the independent variable.
In statistical terms, we typically analyze such relationships using scatter plots and regression analysis to understand the degree of correlation between variables, with the independent variable plotted on the x-axis and the dependent variable on the y-axis. When we graph these variables, we often seek to interpret the relationship, whether it's linear or non-linear, and calculate key statistics like the least-squares line and the correlation coefficient to quantify this relationship.