how to get your x and y axis to skip every other tick mark?

I simply want the graph on the left to show '500' '600' '700' for the y axis and '9' '10' '11'for the x axis.

%data
data1 = [9.3 480; 9.7 501; 9.7 540; 9.7 552; 9.9 547; 10.2 622; 10.5 655; 11 701; 10.6 712; 10.6 708];
data2 = [16 9.8; 9 9; 12 9; 15 9.1;10 8.8; 11 8.7;7 8.4; 2 7.8; 5 7.9;1 7.6];
%make 2 figures
figure;
% add first plot in 2 x 1 grid
subplot(1,2,1);     
scatter(data1(:,1), data1(:,2), '+', 'MarkerFaceColor', 'k');
ylabel('Engineering Doctorates');
xlabel ('Cheese Consumption');
box 'on'
axis square;
axis([8.5 11.5 450 750]);
% add second plot in 2 x 1 grid
subplot(1,2,2); 
scatter(data2(:,1), data2(:,2), 'x', 'MarkerFaceColor', 'k');
ylabel('Kentucky Marriage Rate');
xlabel('Fishing Boat Drownings');
box 'on'
axis square;
axis([0 20 7 10]);
%ticks off
set(gca,'Ticklength',[0 0])
%white background
set(gcf,'color','w');
%correlation coefficient
r = corrcoef(data1(:, 1), data1(:, 2));
disp(r(1,2));

Answer 1

[Rik]

You can set the XTick property of your axes:

data1 = [9.3 480; 9.7 501; 9.7 540; 9.7 552; 9.9 547; 10.2 622; 10.5 655; 11 701; 10.6 712; 10.6 708];
data2 = [16 9.8; 9 9; 12 9; 15 9.1;10 8.8; 11 8.7;7 8.4; 2 7.8; 5 7.9;1 7.6];
figure(1),clf(1)
scatter(data1(:,1), data1(:,2), '+', 'MarkerFaceColor', 'k');
ylabel('Engineering Doctorates');
xlabel ('Cheese Consumption');
box 'on'
axis square;
axis([8.5 11.5 450 750]);
set(gca,'XTick',9:11)
set(gca,'YTick',500:100:700)

[Minka Califf]

Works great! Thank you!

[Rik]

If it works, please mark it as accepted answer.