The way one typically knits on straight needles, you knit from the left needle to the right. When you are done with one row, reverse the right needle so it becomes the left, then knit the next row, repeat. What you see is the graphic when you are done knitting. What the pattern should be doing is zigzagging left-to-right then right-to-left in reverse, i.e. the purl and knit stitches look the opposite from each other: to create something that looks all knitted from the front (and all purled from the back), you knit one row and purl the next row.

edit: Also, the graphic could go the other way, but there is usually a front and back to a knitted piece. There's also knitting in reverse and knitting in the round and more, but generally the pattern will account for that.