Think about what would make the y-value 0. For example x^2 is 0 when x = 0. So what about (x-2)^2? That would give you 0 when x = 2. So in order to have the same y-value (in this case the same vertex) the graph had to move to the right 2 units. In general the form is (x-h)^2, where h is the horizontal shift. So when h = 2 (i.e, shift right 2) the function actually looks like (x-2)^2. It looks like a negative 2 but that's only because the formula (x-h)^2 has the negative already there.
Why???? Why do you shift the function to the left when k is positive and to the right when k is negative????
Think about what would make the y-value 0. For example x^2 is 0 when x = 0. So what about (x-2)^2? That would give you 0 when x = 2. So in order to have the same y-value (in this case the same vertex) the graph had to move to the right 2 units.
In general the form is (x-h)^2, where h is the horizontal shift. So when h = 2 (i.e, shift right 2) the function actually looks like (x-2)^2. It looks like a negative 2 but that's only because the formula (x-h)^2 has the negative already there.
This helped a lot, thanks!