Using Vectors
You should use vectors any time you use angles and directions of motion, whenever your motion is not forward/backward in the same direction. Vectors are highly useful when they are drawn out, then you can use trigonometric ratios to find out resultant vectors.
What do vectors look like?
When you draw vectors (which are just a way to describe motion in a visual way) they look like a line with a “head” and a “tail”. The line begins in a tail, which shows where you started from and ends in a head (which is an arrow) that shows where the motion ended.
The little d with an arrow on top shows that this vector is a displacement vector, it looks like its in the direction [Right 20° Up] (we are going 20 degrees Up from the Right direction). The length of the line is ideally the magnitude of the vector (the scalar part of it), so when drawing vectors you should make them reasonably proportional (e.g. a 3m vector should be smaller than a 7m one).An important mathematical tool when using vectors is the absolute value notation. An absolute value of a vector is written like so: | 
| and it is a way to represent just the magnitude of the vector, without direction. We will be taking the absolute value in an example question.