Consider the following scenario. You are working on your project (a web app) and already have a few commits as shown in the figure below:

A short, simple history

You decide to work on a given issue - _issue53, _in whatever issue tracking system your company uses. (For more on issue tracking systems, check out this link: https://www.boundless.com/users/233403/textbooks/producing-open-source-software/technical-infrastructure-3/bug-tracker-23/)

NB: Git is not tied to any specific issue tracking system. However, since _issue53 _is a dedicated topic, you create a new branch in which to work:

$ git checkout -b issue53 // Creates and switches you to a new branch, issue53

The figure below better illustrates the result:

Creating a new branch pointer