presentations in this part of research paper are using sketches and figures

Enhance Findings With Figures: Visualizing Insights In Research

Master Scientific Data Visualization. Learn how to make data easier, unlock insights and captivate audiences effectively.

Visuals have the power to break language barriers and make scientific exploration more accessible to everyone. Using visual elements can help to present complex data clearly and concisely making it more accessible and understandable to readers. These visual aids allow researchers to convey trends, and patterns in a visually engaging manner, facilitating reader comprehension and interpretation of the research findings. This article explains how using figures, such as figures, tables, charts, and graphs, can enhance research results, making complex data easier to understand.

Enhance Findings With Figures

Figures are a powerful tool for enhancing research findings. They can be used to present data in a clear and concise way, show trends and patterns in data, compare different sets of data, explain complex concepts, and make research papers more visually appealing.

When choosing figures, it is important to consider the type of data being presented, the purpose of the figure, the audience for the figure, and the formatting of the figure. It is also important to label all figures clearly and concisely, including the figure number, the title of the figure, and any other necessary information.

Also read: Research Infographic to Communicate Science in a Visual Way

Here are some tips to enhance findings with figures in research papers:

• Use high-quality images or graphs.
• Make sure the figures are large enough to be easily seen.
• Use clear and concise labels for all figures.
• Place figures near the text that they refer to.
• Use a legend to explain any symbols or abbreviations that are used in figures.

The Significance Of Figures In Research

In research, there are Qualitative Studies and Quantitative Studies, each exploring different aspects of data. Visual elements, like charts and graphs, are vital in both types of studies. They help transform complex data into easy-to-understand visuals, making research findings accessible to a wider audience. 

Qualitative Studies

Qualitative studies are a form of research that explore and understand complex phenomena in-depth. Qualitative research focuses on gathering non-numerical data through methods like interviews, focus groups, observations, or content analysis. The primary goal of qualitative studies is to gain rich insights into participants’ perspectives, experiences, and behaviors. Researchers immerse themselves in the data, seeking to identify patterns, themes, and underlying meanings. The data collected in qualitative studies is often textual or visual, and the analysis involves a meticulous process of coding and interpreting the data. The results are presented through narrative descriptions and quotations, providing a comprehensive understanding of the research subject.

Quantitative Studies

Quantitative studies are concerned with objective measurement and numerical data analysis. These studies use structured data collection methods such as surveys, experiments, or secondary data sources. The data is statistically analyzed to identify patterns, correlations, and significant relationships between variables. Quantitative research often involves large sample sizes, and researchers use statistical techniques to draw generalizable conclusions from the data. The findings in quantitative studies are presented in the form of tables, charts, graphs, or statistical summaries, offering a clear and concise representation of the results.

Related article: What’s the Difference: Qualitative vs Quantitative Research?

The Role Of Figures In Enhancing Findings

Figures play a fundamental role in enhancing the presentation and understanding of research findings in both qualitative and quantitative studies. In qualitative research, figures such as thematic maps, concept diagrams, or word clouds provide visual representations of the emerging themes and patterns in the data. These visualizations help researchers identify the interconnectedness of ideas and support the storytelling process by highlighting the most significant findings. 

In quantitative studies, figures such as bar charts, line graphs, or scatter plots are invaluable tools for visualizing numerical relationships and trends. These visual representations make it easier for readers to interpret statistical findings, compare data points, and comprehend complex statistical analyses. Figures in quantitative research facilitate the communication of key results, enabling researchers to emphasize important patterns and draw attention to significant outcomes. Furthermore, interactive figures, such as dynamic data visualizations, allow users to explore the data more closely, empowering them to draw their insights and conclusions from the research findings.

In both types of studies, figures serve as powerful aids in enhancing the overall research communication process. Whether conveying nuanced qualitative insights or presenting statistical results, well-designed figures enable researchers to captivate their audience, facilitating better understanding, engagement, and knowledge dissemination.

Effective Use Of Tables In Research Papers

The effective use of tables in research papers is a crucial aspect of presenting complex data in a clear and organized manner. Tables are potent tools for summarizing large datasets, comparing information, and presenting numerical results concisely. Below are some of the benefits of using tables:

Organizing and Summarizing Data: Tables are ideal for organizing and summarizing large amounts of data, especially when presenting survey results, experimental findings, or statistical data. By structuring data into rows and columns, tables provide a systematic and coherent presentation, allowing readers to quickly and easily understand the essential information.

Facilitating Data Comparison: Tables facilitate the comparison of data from different sources, groups, or periods. Researchers can use tables to present side-by-side comparisons, enabling readers to easily identify patterns, trends, and variations. This helps in drawing meaningful insights and highlighting key findings.

Presenting Complex Relationships: Complex relationships and interactions between variables can be effectively represented in tables. For instance, in multi-factor experimental designs, tables can display the results of interactions between multiple independent variables, making it simpler for readers to understand the relationships between different factors.

Supplementing Textual Explanations: Tables complement the textual content of research papers by providing a concise and visual representation of data. They act as a supplement to the narrative, presenting information in a way that is more accessible and reader-friendly.

Conveying Precise Numeric Data: Tables are handy when precise numeric data needs to be communicated. They allow researchers to present exact values, percentages, or other quantitative information accurately, avoiding potential rounding errors that may occur in the narrative text.

Reducing Repetition: Tables can reduce the need for repetition in the main text. Instead of repeatedly mentioning specific data points or results, researchers can refer readers to the corresponding table, thereby streamlining the presentation of information.

Effective Use Of  Figures In Research Papers

The effective use of figures in research papers is essential for helping the presentation and comprehension of complex information. Here are some applications of figures in a research paper:

Visualizing Data Trends and Patterns: Figures are potent tools for presenting data trends, patterns, and statistical relationships. Graphs and charts, like line plots, bar graphs, and scatter plots, offer clear and concise depictions of numeric data, enabling readers to identify correlations and draw insights effortlessly. Visualizing data through figures allows researchers to communicate their findings more effectively.

Clarifying Complex Concepts: Figures are particularly useful for clarifying complex concepts or processes. Diagrams and flowcharts can break down intricate systems, experimental setups, or theoretical models into easy-to-understand visual representations. By presenting these visual aids alongside textual explanations, researchers can reinforce understanding and minimize potential confusion.

Enhancing Comparative Analysis: Figures aid in comparative analysis, helping researchers present side-by-side comparisons of different groups, experimental conditions, or time periods. Figures, like stacked bar charts or grouped histograms, allow readers to assess variations and differences visually, promoting a deeper understanding of the research outcomes.

Conveying Geographic Information: Maps and geographical visualizations are invaluable for studies involving spatial data or location-based research. They can display distribution patterns, regional variations, or the impact of interventions across geographic areas, providing valuable insights to readers.

Supporting Qualitative Insights: Figures are not limited to quantitative data; they can also support qualitative research. Visual elements like thematic maps, word clouds, or concept diagrams offer innovative ways to present themes, qualitative findings, or textual content in a visually engaging manner.

Emphasizing Key Findings: Figures serve to highlight key findings and important results in research papers. Researchers can use figures to draw attention to critical data points or highlight significant trends, guiding readers to the most pertinent information within the paper.

Improving Overall Readability: Well-designed figures break up dense textual content and improve the overall readability of research papers. Visual elements provide visual relief, allowing readers to absorb information more easily and encouraging engagement with the paper’s content.

Also read: Table versus Figure: Learn When To Use Each Of Them

How To Use Tables In Research Papers

Using tables in research papers is the practice of presenting data, information, or results in a tabular format to organize, and clarify. Tables are an effective way to condense large amounts of data and present it in a structured and easy-to-understand manner. 

The Elements Of Tables

A well-structured table consists of three key elements: the title, column titles, and table body . The title acts as the “topic sentence” of the table, providing a clear and descriptive overview of its content. Concise column titles simplify the table, guiding the reader’s attention sequentially from the title to the column headings. A well-organized table body is where the numerical or textual data is presented, ensuring that elements are read from top to bottom, not across.

Creating Effective Tables

Properly creating tables involves using programs like Excel to design the layout and format the content neatly. Clutter-free tables with consistent font styles and sizes increase readability. It is essential to avoid text wrapping, ensuring that the table remains well-organized and visually appealing.

Related article: Scientific Data Visualization: Learn How to Enhance Your Research

Using Figures In Research Papers

When choosing a figure, consider what would be easiest for the reader to understand and present the data in the most effective way. For example, photographs can be useful for showing spatial relationships. To ensure clarity, number figures and provide descriptive titles or captions. Captions should be concise, placed under the figure, and aligned to the left. Choose simple and easily understandable images, considering size, resolution, and visual attractiveness. Remember to include any necessary information, such as legends, to help the reader understand the figure fully. In manuscripts, illustrations are numbered separately from tables, maintaining a clear and organized presentation of the research findings.

For more information about how to use figures in a research paper, read this article: How to Include Figures in a Research Paper

120% Growth In Citations For Articles With Infographics

Mind the Graph platform offers scientists a user-friendly and innovative way to enhance their research visibility and impact. With a remarkable 120% growth in citations for articles incorporating infographics, the platform has proven its effectiveness in revolutionizing scientific communication. Researchers can create captivating and informative infographics, charts, and graphical abstracts using the platform’s extensive library of templates and illustrations. These visually appealing elements help scientists communicate complex concepts and findings in a more accessible manner, making their research more appealing to a wider audience. 

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• Chapter Seven: Presenting Your Results

This chapter serves as the culmination of the previous chapters, in that it focuses on how to present the results of one's study, regardless of the choice made among the three methods. Writing in academics has a form and style that you will want to apply not only to report your own research, but also to enhance your skills at reading original research published in academic journals. Beyond the basic academic style of report writing, there are specific, often unwritten assumptions about how quantitative, qualitative, and critical/rhetorical studies should be organized and the information they should contain. This chapter discusses how to present your results in writing, how to write accessibly, how to visualize data, and how to present your results in person.  

• Chapter One: Introduction
• Chapter Two: Understanding the distinctions among research methods
• Chapter Three: Ethical research, writing, and creative work
• Chapter Four: Quantitative Methods (Part 1)
• Chapter Four: Quantitative Methods (Part 2 - Doing Your Study)
• Chapter Four: Quantitative Methods (Part 3 - Making Sense of Your Study)
• Chapter Five: Qualitative Methods (Part 1)
• Chapter Five: Qualitative Data (Part 2)
• Chapter Six: Critical / Rhetorical Methods (Part 1)
• Chapter Six: Critical / Rhetorical Methods (Part 2)

Written Presentation of Results

Once you've gone through the process of doing communication research – using a quantitative, qualitative, or critical/rhetorical methodological approach – the final step is to  communicate  it.

The major style manuals (the APA Manual, the MLA Handbook, and Turabian) are very helpful in documenting the structure of writing a study, and are highly recommended for consultation. But, no matter what style manual you may use, there are some common elements to the structure of an academic communication research paper.

Title Page :

This is simple: Your Paper's Title, Your Name, Your Institutional Affiliation (e.g., University), and the Date, each on separate lines, centered on the page. Try to make your title both descriptive (i.e., it gives the reader an idea what the study is about) and interesting (i.e., it is catchy enough to get one's attention).

For example, the title, "The uncritical idealization of a compensated psychopath character in a popular book series," would not be an inaccurate title for a published study, but it is rather vague and exceedingly boring. That study's author fortunately chose the title, "A boyfriend to die for: Edward Cullen as compensated psychopath in Stephanie Meyer's  Twilight ," which is more precisely descriptive, and much more interesting (Merskin, 2011). The use of the colon in academic titles can help authors accomplish both objectives: a catchy but relevant phrase, followed by a more clear explanation of the article's topic.

In some instances, you might be asked to write an abstract, which is a summary of your paper that can range in length from 75 to 250 words. If it is a published paper, it is useful to include key search terms in this brief description of the paper (the title may already have a few of these terms as well). Although this may be the last thing your write, make it one of the best things you write, because this may be the first thing your audience reads about the paper (and may be the only thing read if it is written badly). Summarize the problem/research question, your methodological approach, your results and conclusions, and the significance of the paper in the abstract.

Quantitative and qualitative studies will most typically use the rest of the section titles noted below. Critical/rhetorical studies will include many of the same steps, but will often have different headings. For example, a critical/rhetorical paper will have an introduction, definition of terms, and literature review, followed by an analysis (often divided into sections by areas of investigation) and ending with a conclusion/implications section. Because critical/rhetorical research is much more descriptive, the subheadings in such a paper are often times not generic subheads like "literature review," but instead descriptive subheadings that apply to the topic at hand, as seen in the schematic below. Because many journals expect the article to follow typical research paper headings of introduction, literature review, methods, results, and discussion, we discuss these sections briefly next.

Introduction:

As you read social scientific journals (see chapter 1 for examples), you will find that they tend to get into the research question quickly and succinctly. Journal articles from the humanities tradition tend to be more descriptive in the introduction. But, in either case, it is good to begin with some kind of brief anecdote that gets the reader engaged in your work and lets the reader understand why this is an interesting topic. From that point, state your research question, define the problem (see Chapter One) with an overview of what we do and don't know, and finally state what you will do, or what you want to find out. The introduction thus builds the case for your topic, and is the beginning of building your argument, as we noted in chapter 1.

By the end of the Introduction, the reader should know what your topic is, why it is a significant communication topic, and why it is necessary that you investigate it (e.g., it could be there is gap in literature, you will conduct valuable exploratory research, or you will provide a new model for solving some professional or social problem).

Literature Review:

The literature review summarizes and organizes the relevant books, articles, and other research in this area. It sets up both quantitative and qualitative studies, showing the need for the study. For critical/rhetorical research, the literature review often incorporates the description of the historical context and heuristic vocabulary, with key terms defined in this section of the paper. For more detail on writing a literature review, see Appendix 1.

The methods of your paper are the processes that govern your research, where the researcher explains what s/he did to solve the problem. As you have seen throughout this book, in communication studies, there are a number of different types of research methods. For example, in quantitative research, one might conduct surveys, experiments, or content analysis. In qualitative research, one might instead use interviews and observations. Critical/rhetorical studies methods are more about the interpretation of texts or the study of popular culture as communication. In creative communication research, the method may be an interpretive performance studies or filmmaking. Other methods used sometimes alone, or in combination with other methods, include legal research, historical research, and political economy research.

In quantitative and qualitative research papers, the methods will be most likely described according to the APA manual standards. At the very least, the methods will include a description of participants, data collection, and data analysis, with specific details on each of these elements. For example, in an experiment, the researcher will describe the number of participants, the materials used, the design of the experiment, the procedure of the experiment, and what statistics will be used to address the hypotheses/research questions.

Critical/rhetorical researchers rarely have a specific section called "methods," as opposed to quantitative and qualitative researchers, but rather demonstrate the method they use for analysis throughout the writing of their piece.

Helping your reader understand the methods you used for your study is important not only for your own study's credibility, but also for possible replication of your study by other researchers. A good guideline to keep in mind is  transparency . You want to be as clear as possible in describing the decisions you made in designing your study, gathering and analyzing your data so that the reader can retrace your steps and understand how you came to the conclusions you formed. A research study can be very good, but if it is not clearly described so that others can see how the results were determined or obtained, then the quality of the study and its potential contributions are lost.

After you completed your study, your findings will be listed in the results section. Particularly in a quantitative study, the results section is for revisiting your hypotheses and reporting whether or not your results supported them, and the statistical significance of the results. Whether your study supported or contradicted your hypotheses, it's always helpful to fully report what your results were. The researcher usually organizes the results of his/her results section by research question or hypothesis, stating the results for each one, using statistics to show how the research question or hypothesis was answered in the study.

The qualitative results section also may be organized by research question, but usually is organized by themes which emerged from the data collected. The researcher provides rich details from her/his observations and interviews, with detailed quotations provided to illustrate the themes identified. Sometimes the results section is combined with the discussion section.

Critical/rhetorical researchers would include their analysis often with different subheadings in what would be considered a "results" section, yet not labeled specifically this way.

Discussion:

In the discussion section, the researcher gives an appraisal of the results. Here is where the researcher considers the results, particularly in light of the literature review, and explains what the findings mean. If the results confirmed or corresponded with the findings of other literature, then that should be stated. If the results didn't support the findings of previous studies, then the researcher should develop an explanation of why the study turned out this way. Sometimes, this section is called a "conclusion" by researchers.

References:

In this section, all of the literature cited in the text should have full references in alphabetical order. Appendices: Appendix material includes items like questionnaires used in the study, photographs, documents, etc. An alphabetical letter is assigned for each piece (e.g. Appendix A, Appendix B), with a second line of title describing what the appendix contains (e.g. Participant Informed Consent, or  New York Times  Speech Coverage). They should be organized consistently with the order in which they are referenced in the text of the paper. The page numbers for appendices are consecutive with the paper and reference list.

Tables/Figures:

Tables and figures are referenced in the text, but included at the end of the study and numbered consecutively. (Check with your professor; some like to have tables and figures inserted within the paper's main text.) Tables generally are data in a table format, whereas figures are diagrams (such as a pie chart) and drawings (such as a flow chart).

Accessible Writing

As you may have noticed, academic writing does have a language (e.g., words like heuristic vocabulary and hypotheses) and style (e.g., literature reviews) all its own. It is important to engage in that language and style, and understand how to use it to  communicate effectively in an academic context . Yet, it is also important to remember that your analyses and findings should also be written to be accessible. Writers should avoid excessive jargon, or—even worse—deploying jargon to mask an incomplete understanding of a topic.

The scourge of excessive jargon in academic writing was the target of a famous hoax in 1996. A New York University physics professor submitted an article, " Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity ," to a special issue of the academic journal  Social Text  devoted to science and postmodernism. The article was designed to point out how dense academic jargon can sometimes mask sloppy thinking. As the professor, Alan Sokal, had expected, the article was published. One sample sentence from the article reads:

It has thus become increasingly apparent that physical "reality", no less than social "reality", is at bottom a social and linguistic construct; that scientific "knowledge", far from being objective, reflects and encodes the dominant ideologies and power relations of the culture that produced it; that the truth claims of science are inherently theory-laden and self-referential; and consequently, that the discourse of the scientific community, for all its undeniable value, cannot assert a privileged epistemological status with respect to counter-hegemonic narratives emanating from dissident or marginalized communities. (Sokal, 1996. pp. 217-218)

According to the journal's editor, about six reviewers had read the article but didn't suspect that it was phony. A public debate ensued after Sokal revealed his hoax. Sokal said he worried that jargon and intellectual fads cause academics to lose contact with the real world and "undermine the prospect for progressive social critique" ( Scott, 1996 ). The APA Manual recommends to avoid using technical vocabulary where it is not needed or relevant or if the technical language is overused, thus becoming jargon. In short, the APA argues that "scientific jargon...grates on the reader, encumbers the communication of information, and wastes space" (American Psychological Association, 2010, p. 68).

Data Visualization

Images and words have long existed on the printed page of manuscripts, yet, until recently, relatively few researchers possessed the resources to effectively combine images combined with words (Tufte, 1990, 1983). Communication scholars are only now becoming aware of this dimension in research as computer technologies have made it possible for many people to produce and publish multimedia presentations.

Although visuals may seem to be anathema to the primacy of the written word in research, they are a legitimate way, and at times the best way, to present ideas. Visual scholar Lester Faigley et al. (2004) explains how data visualizations have become part of our daily lives:

Visualizations can shed light on research as well. London-based David McCandless specializes in visualizing interesting research questions, or in his words "the questions I wanted answering" (2009, p. 7). His images include a graph of the  peak times of the year for breakups  (based on Facebook status updates), a  radiation dosage chart , and some  experiments with the Google Ngram Viewer , which charts the appearance of keywords in millions of books over hundreds of years.

The  public domain image  below creatively maps U.S. Census data of the outflow of people from California to other states between 1995 and 2000.

Visualizing one's research is possible in multiple ways. A simple technology, for example, is to enter data into a spreadsheet such as Excel, and select  Charts  or  SmartArt  to generate graphics. A number of free web tools can also transform raw data into useful charts and graphs.  Many Eyes , an open source data visualization tool (sponsored by IBM Research), says its goal "is to 'democratize' visualization and to enable a new social kind of data analysis" (IBM, 2011). Another tool,  Soundslides , enables users to import images and audio to create a photographic slideshow, while the program handles all of the background code. Other tools, often open source and free, can help visual academic research into interactive maps; interactive, image-based timelines; interactive charts; and simple 2-D and 3-D animations. Adobe Creative Suite (which includes popular software like Photoshop) is available on most computers at universities, but open source alternatives exist as well.  Gimp  is comparable to Photoshop, and it is free and relatively easy to use.

One online performance studies journal,  Liminalities , is an excellent example of how "research" can be more than just printed words. In each issue, traditional academic essays and book reviews are often supported photographs, while other parts of an issue can include video, audio, and multimedia contributions. The journal, founded in 2005, treats performance itself as a methodology, and accepts contribution in html, mp3, Quicktime, and Flash formats.

For communication researchers, there is also a vast array of visual digital archives available online. Many of these archives are located at colleges and universities around the world, where digital librarians are spearheading a massive effort to make information—print, audio, visual, and graphic—available to the public as part of a global information commons. For example, the University of Iowa has a considerable digital archive including historical photos documenting American railroads and a database of images related to geoscience. The University of Northern Iowa has a growing Special Collections Unit that includes digital images of every UNI Yearbook between 1905 and 1923 and audio files of UNI jazz band performances. Researchers at he University of Michigan developed  OAIster , a rich database that has joined thousands of digital archives in one searchable interface. Indeed, virtually every academic library is now digitizing all types of media, not just texts, and making them available for public viewing and, when possible, for use in presenting research. In addition to academic collections, the  Library of Congress  and the  National Archives  offer an ever-expanding range of downloadable media; commercial, user-generated databases such as Flickr, Buzznet, YouTube and Google Video offer a rich resource of images that are often free of copyright constraints (see Chapter 3 about Creative Commons licenses) and nonprofit endeavors, such as the  Internet Archive , contain a formidable collection of moving images, still photographs, audio files (including concert recordings), and open source software.

Presenting your Work in Person

As Communication students, it's expected that you are not only able to communicate your research project in written form but also in person.

Before you do any oral presentation, it's good to have a brief "pitch" ready for anyone who asks you about your research. The pitch is routine in Hollywood: a screenwriter has just a few minutes to present an idea to a producer. Although your pitch will be more sophisticated than, say, " Snakes on a Plane " (which unfortunately was made into a movie), you should in just a few lines be able to explain the gist of your research to anyone who asks. Developing this concise description, you will have some practice in distilling what might be a complicated topic into one others can quickly grasp.

Oral presentation

In most oral presentations of research, whether at the end of a semester, or at a research symposium or conference, you will likely have just 10 to 20 minutes. This is probably not enough time to read the entire paper aloud, which is not what you should do anyway if you want people to really listen (although, unfortunately some make this mistake). Instead, the point of the presentation should be to present your research in an interesting manner so the listeners will want to read the whole thing. In the presentation, spend the least amount of time on the literature review (a very brief summary will suffice) and the most on your own original contribution. In fact, you may tell your audience that you are only presenting on one portion of the paper, and that you would be happy to talk more about your research and findings in the question and answer session that typically follows. Consider your presentation the beginning of a dialogue between you and the audience. Your tone shouldn't be "I have found everything important there is to find, and I will cram as much as I can into this presentation," but instead "I found some things you will find interesting, but I realize there is more to find."

Turabian (2007) has a helpful chapter on presenting research. Most important, she emphasizes, is to remember that your audience members are listeners, not readers. Thus, recall the lessons on speech making in your college oral communication class. Give an introduction, tell them what the problem is, and map out what you will present to them. Organize your findings into a few points, and don't get bogged down in minutiae. (The minutiae are for readers to find if they wish, not for listeners to struggle through.) PowerPoint slides are acceptable, but don't read them. Instead, create an outline of a few main points, and practice your presentation.

Turabian  suggests an introduction of not more than three minutes, which should include these elements:

• The research topic you will address (not more than a minute).
• Your research question (30 seconds or less)
• An answer to "so what?" – explaining the relevance of your research (30 seconds)
• Your claim, or argument (30 seconds or less)
• The map of your presentation structure (30 seconds or less)

As Turabian (2007) suggests, "Rehearse your introduction, not only to get it right, but to be able to look your audience in the eye as you give it. You can look down at notes later" (p. 125).

Poster presentation

In some symposiums and conferences, you may be asked to present at a "poster" session. Instead of presenting on a panel of 4-5 people to an audience, a poster presenter is with others in a large hall or room, and talks one-on-one with visitors who look at the visual poster display of the research. As in an oral presentation, a poster highlights just the main point of the paper. Then, if visitors have questions, the author can informally discuss her/his findings.

To attract attention, poster presentations need to be nicely designed, or in the words of an advertising professor who schedules poster sessions at conferences, "be big, bold, and brief" ( Broyles , 2011). Large type (at least 18 pt.), graphics, tables, and photos are recommended.

A poster presentation session at a conference, by David Eppstein (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 ( www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 )], via Wikimedia Commons]

The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) has a  template for making an effective poster presentation . Many universities, copy shops, and Internet services also have large-scale printers, to print full-color research poster designs that can be rolled up and transported in a tube.

Judging Others' Research

After taking this course, you should have a basic knowledge of research methods. There will still be some things that may mystify you as a reader of other's research. For example, you may not be able to interpret the coefficients for statistical significance, or make sense of a complex structural equation. Some specialized vocabulary may still be difficult.

But, you should understand how to critically review research. For example, imagine you have been asked to do a blind (i.e., the author's identity is concealed) "peer review" of communication research for acceptance to a conference, or publication in an academic journal. For most  conferences  and  journals , submissions are made online, where editors can manage the flow and assign reviews to papers. The evaluations reviewers make are based on the same things that we have covered in this book. For example, the conference for the AEJMC ask reviewers to consider (on a five-point scale, from Excellent to Poor) a number of familiar research dimensions, including the paper's clarity of purpose, literature review, clarity of research method, appropriateness of research method, evidence presented clearly, evidence supportive of conclusions, general writing and organization, and the significance of the contribution to the field.

Beyond academia, it is likely you will more frequently apply the lessons of research methods as a critical consumer of news, politics, and everyday life. Just because some expert cites a number or presents a conclusion doesn't mean it's automatically true. John Allen Paulos, in his book  A Mathematician reads the newspaper , suggests some basic questions we can ask. "If statistics were presented, how were they obtained? How confident can we be of them? Were they derived from a random sample or from a collection of anecdotes? Does the correlation suggest a causal relationship, or is it merely a coincidence?" (1997, p. 201).

Through the study of research methods, we have begun to build a critical vocabulary and understanding to ask good questions when others present "knowledge." For example, if Candidate X won a straw poll in Iowa, does that mean she'll get her party's nomination? If Candidate Y wins an open primary in New Hampshire, does that mean he'll be the next president? If Candidate Z sheds a tear, does it matter what the context is, or whether that candidate is a man or a woman? What we learn in research methods about validity, reliability, sampling, variables, research participants, epistemology, grounded theory, and rhetoric, we can consider whether the "knowledge" that is presented in the news is a verifiable fact, a sound argument, or just conjecture.

American Psychological Association (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Broyles, S. (2011). "About poster sessions." AEJMC.  http://www.aejmc.org/home/2013/01/about-poster-sessions/ .

Faigley, L., George, D., Palchik, A., Selfe, C. (2004).  Picturing texts . New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

IBM (2011). Overview of Many Eyes.  http://www.research.ibm.com/social/projects_manyeyes.shtml .

McCandless, D. (2009).  The visual miscellaneum . New York: Collins Design.

Merskin, D. (2011). A boyfriend to die for: Edward Cullen as compensated psychopath in Stephanie Meyer's  Twilight. Journal of Communication Inquiry  35: 157-178. doi:10.1177/0196859911402992

Paulos, J. A. (1997).  A mathematician reads the newspaper . New York: Anchor.

Scott, J. (1996, May 18). Postmodern gravity deconstructed, slyly.  New York Times , http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/15/specials/sokal-text.html .

Sokal, A. (1996). Transgressing the boundaries: towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity.  Social Text  46/47, 217-252.

Tufte, E. R. (1990).  Envisioning information . Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.

Tufte, E. R. (1983).  The visual display of quantitative information . Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.

Turabian, Kate L. (2007).  A manual for writers of research papers, theses, and dissertations: Chicago style guide for students and researchers  (7th ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Presenting Research Data Effectively Through Tables and Figures

Presenting research data and key findings in an organized, visually attractive, and meaningful manner is a key part of a good research paper. This is particularly important in instances where complex data and information, which cannot be easily communicated through text alone, need to be presented engagingly. The best way to do this is through the use of tables and figures. They help to organize and summarize large amounts of data and present it in an easy-to-understand way.  

Tables are used to present numerical data, while figures are used to display non-numerical data, such as graphs, charts, and diagrams. There are different types of tables and figures, and choosing the appropriate format is essential to present the data effectively. This article provides some insights on how to present research data and findings using tables and figures.  

How to present research data in tables?

When complex data and statistical findings are too unwieldy or difficult to present either in text form or as figures, they can be presented through tables. Tables are best used where exact numerical values need to be analyzed and shared. It also aids in the comparison and contrast of various features or values among the different units. This allows swift and easy identification of patterns in the datasets. While presenting tables in a research paper, it is essential to incorporate certain core elements to ensure that readers are able to draw inferences and conclusions easily and quickly.  

• Title of the table :  The title should be concise and clear and communicate the purpose of the table. Tables must be referenced in the text through table numbers. Both the table number and the title are ideally mentioned just above the table. 
• Body of the table:  A crucial element in preparing the body of a table is to ensure uniformity in terms of units of measurement and the accurate use of decimal places. It is also important to format the table and ensure equal spacing between rows and columns.  
• Keep it simple and accurate:  It is important to ensure that only relevant information is presented in the table. One needs to be cautious not to populate tables with unnecessary information or design elements. Using plain fonts, in italics or bold, and the use of color or border styles help make the table visually appealing. Rows and columns must be labeled clearly and accurately to ensure that there is no ambiguity in analyzing the data presented. 

How to present research data in figures?

Figures are a powerful tool for visually presenting research data and key study findings. Figures are usually used to communicate trends or relationships and general patterns emerging from datasets. They are also used to present research data and complex information in a simpler form. Figures can take various forms like graphs, pie charts, scatter plots, line diagrams, drawings, maps, and photos. Early career researchers need to know how best to present figures in their research papers. The following are some core elements that should be incorporated.  

• Title:  Every figure must have a title that is clear and concise and must summarize the main point of the data being presented. It should be placed just below the figure. The numbering of the figures should be sequential and must correspond to the reference provided in the text. 
• Type of figure:  The type of figure to be used is usually dictated by the kind of information to be conveyed. Researchers need to decide which type of figure will enable readers to understand the information being shared easily. For example, scatter plots can be used to show relationships between two variables, pie charts can be used to illustrate relative proportions, and graphs can be used for the quantitative relationship between variables.  
• Use of Images:  When using figures, care should be taken to ensure that images are of a high resolution – sharp and clear. 
• Labeling:  Ensuring that all parts of the figures and the axes are labeled accurately is crucial if readers are to glean important details quickly. Use standard font sizes and styles. Experts also suggest the inclusion of scale bars in maps. 

Tips for Effectively Presenting Research Data through Tables and Figures

When presenting research data through tables or figures, it’s important to ensure that it is adding value to the text and not merely repeating values. This means taking care of certain vital aspects to ensure that the presentation is uniform, clear, and easy to read. Here are some tips to help you achieve that:

• Make sure that tables or figures add value to the text
• Ensure uniformity in numbering of tables, figures, and values both in the text and in the visual presentation
• Cite the source if tables and figures are used from a different source
• Use appropriate scales when creating tables and figures
• Use logarithmic scales if the data covers a wide range
• Use linear scales if the data is relatively small
• Check publication or style guide instructions of the target journal regarding the presentation of research data and findings, image resolution, presentation style, formatting, and so on
• Remember, tables and figures are only tools to convey information – using too many of them can overwhelm readers

In summary, presenting research data through tables and figures can be an effective way to convey information. However, it’s important to follow these tips to ensure that the presentation is clear and easy to read. By taking care of these vital aspects, researchers can effectively communicate their findings to their intended audience.

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How to Make Good Figures for Scientific Papers

Creating good figures for scientific publications requires using design best practices to make each figure clearly show the main point of your data story.

This article reviews important design principles that will help you create effective figures. However, if you want step-by-step tutorials on how to create the scientific illustrations and Excel graphs using Adobe Illustrator and PowerPoint, read these articles instead:

• Free Graphical Abstract Templates and Tutorials
• Free Research Poster Templates and Tutorials  

Four Rules to Create High-Quality Figures

The best data visualizations for scientific papers use a combination of good design principles and storytelling that allows the audience to quickly understand the results of a scientific study. Below are four rules that will help you make effective research figures and save you time with the final journal formatting. There are also practical tips on how to find the purpose of your figure and how to apply design best practices to graphs, images, and tables. 

Rule 1: Clearly show the main purpose to your audience

For every graph or figure you create, the first step is to answer the question: what is the purpose of my data? Clearly defining the main purpose of your scientific design is essential so that you can create and format the data in ways that are easy to understand. 

The most common purposes for scientific publications are to explain a process or method, compare or contrast, show a change, or to establish a relationship. Each of these purposes should then lead you to select graph types. For example, if the goal of your figure is to explain a method, you will likely want to choose process-focused graph types such as flow charts, diagrams, infographics, illustrations, gantt charts, timelines, parallel sets, or Sankey diagrams. Below are examples of the most common graph types that you can use for different data purposes. Read more articles to learn how to choose the right data visualizations and data storytelling . 

Rule 2: Use composition to simplify the information

After you define the purpose of your graph or figure, the next step is to make sure you follow composition best practices that make the information clear. Composition best practices include following the journal rules and formatting from left to right, top to bottom, or in a circle. You should also review your designs to remove or adjust distracting data, lines, shadows, and repeated elements. Applying good composition means spending time reviewing your layout and simplifying the story using these techniques.

Data Composition Best Practices:

• Design flow should be left to right, top to bottom, or in a circle 
• Make sure most important data is the focus of the design
• Remove or adjust excess data and text
• Make text easy to read
• Reduce contrast of bold lines
• Remove repeated elements
• Remove shadows 

The example below shows how to design a figure that applies the composition best practices by taking an initial layout of a figure on the left and then use formatting to fill the space, simplify information, and reorder the data to more clearly show the main purpose of the research. 

Follow Science Journal Formatting Requirements:

In order to organize the graphs, charts, and figures, you will also need to know the requirements of the scientific journal. You will need to know the limits of the figure sizes, the maximum number of figures, as well as color, fonts, resolution, and file type requirements. You can find different journal requirements by going to the Journal’s homepage and then finding the link to the author’s guidelines from there. If you Google the journal’s formatting requirements, make sure you find the most up-to-date page.

For example, the academic journal Science allows a maximum of 6 figures and requires that they have a width of 55 mm (single column) or 230 mm (double column). In contrast, the journal Nature only allows 3-4 figures or tables with maximum widths of 89 mm (single column) and 183 mm (double column). If you planned to submit your scientific publication to Nature, you would need to carefully plan which graphs and tables will best tell your scientific story within only four figures.

Rule 3: Use colors or grayscale to highlight the purpose

Color is one of the most powerful data storytelling tools. When used properly, color enhances understanding of your graphs and when used poorly, it can be very distracting. 

Scientific Color Design Tips: 

• If possible, limit your design to 1-2 colors that make the main point of the data stand out from the rest
• Make colors accessible to people with color blindness

The example below shows a graph on the left that has a lot of information about graduation rates for bachelor’s degrees in 2019. The text is small and the color design makes it difficult to understand the main results of the data. One way to improve this figure is to use colors to highlight the main story of the data, which is that private for-profit institutions have a much higher drop-out rate than all other institutions. The figure on the right improves this design using the bold pink color and clearer text to highlight the main point of the dataset.

Rule 4: Refine and repeat until the story is clear

The goal of good figure design is to have your audience clearly understand the main point of your research. That is why the final rule is to spend time refining the figure using the purpose, composition, and color tools so that the final design is clear.

It is normal to make 2-3 versions of a figure before you settle on the final design that works best. I recommend using the three clarity checkpoints below to improve your refinement process. 

Design Clarity Checkpoints:

• Checkpoint 1. Does the figure show the overall story or main point when you hide the text? If not, improve the data visualization designs to more clearly show the main purpose.
• Checkpoint 2. Can you remove or adjust unnecessary elements that attract your attention? Remove repetitive elements, bounding boxes, background colors, extra lines, extra colors, repeated text, shadows/shading, either remove or adjust excess data, and consider moving information to supplementary figures.
• Checkpoint 3. Does the color palette enhance or distract from the story? Limit the use of color and pick a color palette that improves audience understanding of the main purpose of the figure. If the color doesn’t serve an obvious purpose, change to grayscale.

Scientific Figure Design Summary

For every scientific publication, follow the four rules of good scientific figure design to help you create effective graphics that engage and impress your audience:

• Clearly show the main purpose to your audience
• Use composition to simplify the information
• Use colors or grayscale to highlight the main points of the figure
• Refine and repeat the process until the story is clear

Related Content: 

• Best Color Palettes for Scientific Figures and Data Visualizations
• Graphical Abstract Examples with Free Templates
• Free Research Poster Templates and Tutorials
• BioRender Alternatives: Scientific Illustration Software Comparisons

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Figure Setup

All types of visual displays other than tables are considered figures in APA Style. Common types of figures include line graphs, bar graphs, charts (e.g., flowcharts, pie charts), drawings, maps, plots (e.g., scatterplots), photographs, infographics, and other illustrations.

This page addresses the basics of figure setup, including figure components, principles of figure construction, and placement of figures in a paper. Note that tables and figures have the same overall setup.

View the sample figures to see these guidelines in action. Information is also available on how to use color to create accessible figures .

Figure components

APA Style figures have these basic components:

• number: The figure number (e.g., Figure 1) appears above the figure title and image in bold font. Number figures in the order in which they are mentioned in your paper.
• title: The figure title appears one double-spaced line below the figure number. Give each figure a brief but descriptive title, and capitalize the figure title in italic title case .
• image: The image portion of the figure is the graph, chart, photograph, drawing, or other illustration itself. If text appears in the image of the figure (e.g., axis labels), use a sans serif font between 8 and 14 points .
• legend: A figure legend, or key, if present, should be positioned within the borders of the figure and explains any symbols used in the figure image. Capitalize words in the figure legend in title case .
• note: Three types of notes (general, specific, and probability) can appear below the figure to describe contents of the figure that cannot be understood from the figure title, image, and/or legend alone (e.g., definitions of abbreviations, copyright attribution, explanations of asterisks use to indicate p values). Include figure notes only as needed.

This diagram illustrates the basic figure components.

Figures are covered in the seventh edition APA Style manuals in the Publication Manual Sections 7.22 to 7.36 and the Concise Guide Sections 7.22 to 7.32

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Principles of figure creation

The most important principle to follow when creating a figure is to present information in a way that is easy for readers to understand. Provide sufficient information in the figure itself so that readers do not need to read the text to understand it.

When creating a figure, ensure you meet the following standards:

• images are clear
• lines are smooth and sharp
• font is legible and simple
• units of measurement are provided
• axes are clearly labeled
• elements within the figure are clearly labeled or explained

Use graphics software to create figures in APA Style papers. For example, use the built-in graphics features of your word-processing program (e.g., Microsoft Word or Excel) or dedicated programs such as Photoshop or Inkscape.

Placement of figures in a paper

There are two options for the placement of figures (and tables) in a paper. The first is to embed figures in the text after each is first mentioned (or “called out”); the second is to place each figure on a separate page after the reference list.

An embedded figure may take up an entire page; if the figure is short, however, text may appear on the same page as the figure. In that case, place the figure at either the top or bottom of the page rather than in the middle. Also add one blank double-spaced line between the figure and any text to improve the visual presentation.

View the sample figures for more information on figures.

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How to Use Tables and Figures effectively in Research Papers

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Table of Contents

Data is the most important component of any research. It needs to be presented effectively in a paper to ensure that readers understand the key message in the paper. Figures and tables act as concise tools for clear presentation . Tables display information arranged in rows and columns in a grid-like format, while figures convey information visually, and take the form of a graph, diagram, chart, or image. Be it to compare the rise and fall of GDPs among countries over the years or to understand how COVID-19 has impacted incomes all over the world, tables and figures are imperative to convey vital findings accurately.

So, what are some of the best practices to follow when creating meaningful and attractive tables and figures? Here are some tips on how best to present tables and figures in a research paper.

Guidelines for including tables and figures meaningfully in a paper:

• Self-explanatory display items: Sometimes, readers, reviewers and journal editors directly go to the tables and figures before reading the entire text. So, the tables need to be well organized and self-explanatory.
• Avoidance of repetition: Tables and figures add clarity to the research. They complement the research text and draw attention to key points. They can be used to highlight the main points of the paper, but values should not be repeated as it defeats the very purpose of these elements.
• Consistency: There should be consistency in the values and figures in the tables and figures and the main text of the research paper.
• Informative titles: Titles should be concise and describe the purpose and content of the table. It should draw the reader’s attention towards the key findings of the research. Column heads, axis labels, figure labels, etc., should also be appropriately labelled.
• Adherence to journal guidelines: It is important to follow the instructions given in the target journal regarding the preparation and presentation of figures and tables, style of numbering, titles, image resolution, file formats, etc.

Now that we know how to go about including tables and figures in the manuscript, let’s take a look at what makes tables and figures stand out and create impact.

How to present data in a table?

For effective and concise presentation of data in a table, make sure to:

• Combine repetitive tables: If the tables have similar content, they should be organized into one.
• Divide the data: If there are large amounts of information, the data should be divided into categories for more clarity and better presentation. It is necessary to clearly demarcate the categories into well-structured columns and sub-columns.
• Keep only relevant data: The tables should not look cluttered. Ensure enough spacing.

Example of table presentation in a research paper

For comprehensible and engaging presentation of figures:

• Ensure clarity: All the parts of the figure should be clear. Ensure the use of a standard font, legible labels, and sharp images.
• Use appropriate legends: They make figures effective and draw attention towards the key message.
• Make it precise: There should be correct use of scale bars in images and maps, appropriate units wherever required, and adequate labels and legends.

It is important to get tables and figures correct and precise for your research paper to convey your findings accurately and clearly. If you are confused about how to suitably present your data through tables and figures, do not worry. Elsevier Author Services are well-equipped to guide you through every step to ensure that your manuscript is of top-notch quality.

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Chapter 8:  Figures and Tables

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Introduction.

• TELLING A STORY
• SUMMARY OF GUIDELINES FOR FIGURES AND TABLES
• EXERCISE 8.1: DESIGN OF FIGURES AND TABLES AND THEIR RELATION TO THE TEXT
• EXERCISE 8.2: TABLE DESIGN AND RELATION TO THE TEXT
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In Section II , The Text of the Biomedical Research Paper, we saw how to write each section of the text to tell a clear story. However, many readers do not read the text, or read only part of it. Instead these readers look at the figures and tables. Therefore it is important that the figures and tables are clear and tell the story of the paper.

Clear figures and tables result from careful design and from informative legends for figures and informative titles and footnotes for tables. Careful design is important because figures and tables are visual means of conveying information and therefore should have strong visual impact. Informative legends, titles, and footnotes are important to ensure that the topic of each figure and table is clear.

Figures and tables that tell the story of the paper result from designing the figures and tables to form a clear sequence that relates clearly to the text.

Chapter 8 presents guidelines for designing clear figures and tables, for writing informative legends for figures and informative titles and footnotes for tables, and for designing figures and tables to tell the story of the paper.

In scientific research papers, most figures are used in the Methods and Results sections, though figures can also be used in the Introduction and the Discussion. In Methods, the main use of figures is to clarify or amplify the methods. For example, figures can be used to show apparatus or anatomic relations. In Results, the main use of figures is to present evidence that supports the results. Figures present either primary evidence (for example, electron micrographs) or numerical data (in graphs).

Drawings and Diagrams

Drawings illustrate anatomy, apparatus, and other concrete things. Diagrams illustrate concepts such as flow systems. Drawings and diagrams can be either realistic or schematic ( Fig. 1 ).

A diagram drawn both realistically (left) and schematically (right). The schematic diagram is simpler, but the realistic diagram may have more impact for some readers. The drawing is black on white, and the labels are uppercase and lowercase letters in a vertical, uncrowded, sans serif typeface of medium weight.

For animals and apparatus, drawings are preferable to photographs, because drawings can eliminate unnecessary detail and emphasize important features ( Fig. 2 ).

Photograph (left) and drawing (right) of an apparatus for measuring intrapleural pressure. The drawing shows the apparatus more clearly and simply than the photograph does.

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Presenting Results of Statistical Analysis

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This chapter is intended to be a practical guide to help with the construction of tables and figures and with the general presentation of results of statistical analysis in a research paper. Constructing tables and figures well and writing a results section so that it appears to make a coherent point—and does not wander—is as important as constructing a solid research question and conducting analyses correctly to answer it. That is, if the reporting of the results does a poor job of telling a story that can answer the research question, it is ultimately pointless to have developed a good literature review and research question. For that matter, the statistical analyses may have been performed extremely well, but if the results are not displayed in a way that is easy to see and understand, the analyses have been a waste of time.

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Lynch, S.M. (2013). Presenting Results of Statistical Analysis. In: Using Statistics in Social Research. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8573-5_11

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APA Format for Tables and Figures | Annotated Examples

Published on November 5, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on January 17, 2024.

A table concisely presents information (often numbers) in rows and columns. A figure is any other image or illustration you include in your text—anything from a bar chart to a photograph.

Tables and figures differ in terms of how they convey information, but APA Style presents them in a similar format—preceded by a number and title, and followed by explanatory notes (if necessary).

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Table of contents

Apa table format, apa figure format, numbering and titling tables and figures, formatting table and figure notes, where to place tables and figures, referring to tables and figures in the text, frequently asked questions about apa tables and figures.

Tables will vary in size and structure depending on the data you’re presenting, but APA gives some general guidelines for their design. To correctly format an APA table, follow these rules:

• Table number in bold above the table.
• Brief title, in italics and title case, below the table number.
• No vertical lines.
• Horizontal lines only where necessary for clarity.
• Clear, concise labels for column and row headings.
• Numbers consistently formatted (e.g. with the same number of decimal places).
• Any relevant notes below the table.

An example of a table formatted according to APA guidelines is shown below.

The table above uses only four lines: Those at the top and bottom, and those separating the main data from the column heads and the totals.

Create your tables using the tools built into your word processor. In Word, you can use the “ Insert table ” tool.

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Any images used within your text are called figures. Figures include data visualization graphics—e.g. graphs, diagrams, flowcharts—as well as things like photographs and artworks.

To correctly format an APA figure, follow these rules:

• Figure number in bold above the figure.
• Brief title, in italics and title case, under the figure number.
• If necessary, clear labels and legends integrated into the image.
• Any relevant notes below the figure.

An example of a figure formatted according to APA guidelines is shown below.

Keep the design of figures as simple as possible. Use colors only where necessary, not just to make the image look more appealing.

For text within the image itself, APA recommends using a sans serif font (e.g. Arial) with a size between 8 and 14 points.

For other figures, such as photographs, you won’t need a legend; the figure consists simply of the image itself, reproduced at an appropriate size and resolution.

Each table or figure is preceded by a number and title.

Tables and figures are each numbered separately, in the order they are referred to in your text. For example, the first table you refer to is Table 1; the fourth figure you refer to is Figure 4.

The title should clearly and straightforwardly describe the content of the table or figure. Omit articles to keep it concise.

The table or figure number appears on its own line, in bold, followed by the title on the following line, in italics and title case.

Where a table or figure needs further explanation, notes should be included immediately after it. These are not your analysis of the data presented; save that for the main text.

There are three kinds of notes: general , specific , and probability . Each type of note appears in a new paragraph, but multiple notes of the same kind all appear in one paragraph.

Only include the notes that are needed to understand the table or figure. It may be that it is clear in itself, and has no notes, or only probability notes; be as concise as possible.

General notes

General notes come first. They are preceded by the word “ Note ” in italics, followed by a period. They include any explanations that apply to the table or figure as a whole and a citation if it was adapted from another source, and they end with definitions of any abbreviations used.

Specific notes

Specific notes refer to specific points in the table or figure. Superscript letters (a, b, c …) appear at the relevant points in the table or figure and at the start of each note to indicate what they refer to. They are used when it’s necessary to comment on a specific data point or term.

Probability notes

Probability notes give p -values for the data in the table or figure. They correspond to asterisks (and/or other symbols) in the table or figure.

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You have two options for the placement of tables and figures in APA Style:

• Option 1: Place tables and figures throughout your text, shortly after the parts of the text that refer to them.
• Option 2: Place them all together at the end of your text (after the reference list) to avoid breaking up the text.

If you place them throughout the text, note that each table or figure should only appear once. If you refer to the same table or figure more than once, don’t reproduce it each time—just place it after the paragraph in which it’s first discussed.

Align the table or figure with the text along the left margin. Leave a line break before and after the table or figure to clearly distinguish it from the main text, and place it on a new page if necessary to avoid splitting it across multiple pages.

If you place all your tables and figures at the end, you should have one table or figure on each page. Begin with all your tables, then place all your figures afterwards.

Avoid making redundant statements about your tables and figures in your text. When you write about data from tables and figures, it should be to highlight or analyze a particular data point or trend, not simply to restate what is already clearly shown in the table or figure:

• As Table 1 shows, there are 115 boys in Grade 4, 130 in Grade 5, and 117 in Grade 6 …
• Table 1 indicates a notable preponderance of boys in Grade 5. It is important to take this into account because …

Additionally, even if you have embedded your tables and figures in your text, refer to them by their numbers, not by their position relative to the text or by description:

• The table below shows…
• Table 1 shows…
• As can be seen in the image on page 4…
• As can be seen in Figure 3…
• The photograph of a bald eagle is an example of…
• Figure 1 is an example of…

In an APA Style paper , use a table or figure when it’s a clearer way to present important data than describing it in your main text. This is often the case when you need to communicate a large amount of information.

Before including a table or figure in your text, always reflect on whether it’s useful to your readers’ understanding:

• Could this information be quickly summarized in the text instead?
• Is it important to your arguments?
• Does the table or figure require too much explanation to be efficient?

If the data you need to present only contains a few relevant numbers, try summarizing it in the text (potentially including full data in an appendix ). If describing the data makes your text overly long and difficult to read, a table or figure may be the best option.

APA doesn’t require you to include a list of tables or a list of figures . However, it is advisable to do so if your text is long enough to feature a table of contents and it includes a lot of tables and/or figures.

A list of tables and list of figures appear (in that order) after your table of contents , and are presented in a similar way.

If you adapt or reproduce a table or figure from another source, you should include that source in your APA reference list . You should also acknowledge the original source in the note or caption for the table or figure.

Tables and figures you created yourself, based on your own data, are not included in the reference list.

In most styles, the title page is used purely to provide information and doesn’t include any images. Ask your supervisor if you are allowed to include an image on the title page before doing so. If you do decide to include one, make sure to check whether you need permission from the creator of the image.

Include a note directly beneath the image acknowledging where it comes from, beginning with the word “ Note .” (italicized and followed by a period). Include a citation and copyright attribution . Don’t title, number, or label the image as a figure , since it doesn’t appear in your main text.

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• J Postgrad Med
• v.69(3); Jul-Sep 2023
• PMC10394528

Utilizing tables, figures, charts and graphs to enhance the readability of a research paper

Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, National University of Science and Technology, Sohar, Sultanate of Oman

1 Department of Pediatrics, Seth G.S. Medical College and KEM Hospital, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Introduction

Every author aims to reach the maximum target audience through his/her research publication/s. Our previous editorials have touched upon the process of writing a quality research paper and its successful publication in an appropriate journal.[ 1 , 2 ] Journal-specific ”Instructions for Authors” generally have defined limits to the text and non-textual content for the benefit of space and presentation. Though the aim of a paper is to get its research point across through methodology, results, and discussion, readers often read the summary of data and analysis (only). Thus, the tables, figures, charts, and graphs are time and space-effective tools that not only help to understand the research presented in a simple manner but also engage and sustain the reader's interest.

Why use tables/figures/charts or graphs?

Reading text matter can often get monotonous – for the readers as well as the editors and reviewers. Using Tables/Figures/Charts or Graphs effectively provides a break from textual content monotony as well as provides an opportunity to process and connect information between text and images, promoting deeper learning. It is suggested that one non-textual element should be used for every 1000 words in a manuscript, which generally amounts to two for every three print pages.[ 3 ] The use of tables/figures/charts/graphs not only reduces the word count but also complements the text effectively. Although the text focuses on explaining findings, outlining trends, and providing contextual information, non-textual content allows readers to understand characteristics, distribution, and relationships between data, and visualize statistics/abstract concepts in a powerful manner. High-quality tables and figures also increase the likelihood of a manuscript being accepted for publication.[ 4 ] Note that the figures/artwork needs to be uploaded as separate files for most of the journals.

The CONSORT statement ( www.equator-ntework.org ) provides guidelines on how to report outcome-specific information in a published clinical trial report; however there are no definite recommendations on how to present non-textual elements, and this varies from one journal to another. Authors tend to prepare them based on their own understanding, often without much thought, and repeat the information presented in the main text. Moreover, while some journals have dedicated editors and resources to redraw or edit figures/tables, others simply publish whatever the authors submit. Thus, to improve the readability of the paper, it is primarily the author's responsibility to submit clear and useful tables, figures, charts, and graphs.

The heart of any research lies in its data, and most readers only get a glimpse of the data via the results. The closest one can get to raw statistics is through data presented in tables, figures, graphs, and supplementary material. Tables, figures, and graphs also help to classify and interpret data, highlight key findings, and present maximum data in a concise space. The author should make a deliberate decision on the presentation of his data early in the writing process. Using a sentence as text is more efficient while presenting up to half a dozen numbers in data or if the information can be summarized in three or lesser sentences.[ 5 ] Figures give an overall picture of concept (but without exact numerical data), while tables present exact values (but are less engaging and less interesting).[ 5 ] The final choice of the presentation depends on the type of data, statistical analysis, and relevant message to be delivered.[ 6 ]

General methodology of design and submission

The general structure followed by most non-textual elements is caption/legend/title, content, and footnotes. All data should be verified thoroughly for errors (especially outliers or unexpected spikes) and data sources should be cited in the footnotes/references. The presentation should be simple and clear enough for the reader to understand without any assumptions.[ 7 ] Each exhibit should be labeled clearly with a title and numbers (usually Arabic numerals) that are separate, unique, and consecutive based on their appearance in the text. The title should be self-explanatory and explain the information presented (what, where, and when) briefly. Footnotes should refer to restrictions, assumptions, abbreviations, explanatory notes, and unusual annotations. The formatting should be consistent throughout (across all tables/graphs) for easy comparison.[ 7 ] Design the figures, tables, and graphs to fit in one page on a scale that will be readable in print.[ 8 ] Always use the insert -> (arrow) page break function to ensure that each new Table/Figure/Graph is seen in the document on a new page. Data from the figures and tables should not be repeated in the text. Although tables/figures are often submitted separately or at the end of manuscript based on journal instructions, they should be referred to in the text at appropriate points by location statements i.e. Figures ​ Figures1 1 and ​ and2 2 or Tables ​ Tables1 1 and ​ and2 2 .[ 7 ] One should be careful during editing and proofreading, as contents and columns may get misplaced.[ 9 ] Ensure to follow the journal instructions regarding numbers and formats and glance through published examples in targeted journal. For additional data/tables/figures/graphs that do not fit into the journal's instructions or are still necessary to be displayed outside the word/Table limit, online appendages (or supplementary files) can be created. Do ask for feedback from experienced colleague/s (but not co-author) for the exhibit before final submissions.

A representative table already published in the JPGM earlier (reproduced from Shah S, Deshmukh CT, Tullu MS. The predictors of outcome and progression of pediatric sepsis and septic shock: A prospective observational study from western India. J Postgrad Med 2020;66:67-72 )

Representative figure/s already published in the JPGM earlier (reproduced from Mondkar SA, Tullu MS, Sathe P, Agrawal M. Lane-Hamilton syndrome – Is it really a needle in a haystack? J Postgrad Med 2022;68:162-7 )

Do’s and Don’ts while creating effective Tables.[ 8 , 9 , 12 , 14 , 15 ]

Types of graphical representations and their characteristics.[ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 20 , 21 ]

Copyright issues

Material from government publications/public domain may be used without seeking permission; however, permission is required for all fully borrowed, adapted, or modified tables/figures/graphs not in the public domain, usually from the publishers, with appropriate credit notes in footnotes (as stated for the Journal of Postgraduate Medicine – JPGM).[ 9 , 10 ] All data sources should be identified for tables/figures created using information from other studies.[ 9 ] Authors should seek permissions from publishers early in their writing, as their research cannot be published until all written permissions have been submitted and approved.[ 9 ] It is good practice to maintain a copy of such permissions with the corresponding author in case a dispute arises later on.

Use of tables

Tables are meant to give a systematic overview of the results and provide a richer understanding/comprehension of study participant characteristics and principal research findings.[ 11 ] Since tables deal with larger groups of data, they are suitable when all data requires equal attention and readers can selectively scan the data of interest.[ 6 ] Tables can present precise numerical values and information with different units' side-by-side but may not analyze data trends.[ 6 ] However, due to the sheer amount of data, interpretation may take longer.[ 6 ]

Generally, the first table summarizes key characteristics of the study population allowing readers to assess the generalizability of the findings. Subsequent tables present details of associations/comparisons between variables, often crude findings followed by models adjusted for confounding factors.[ 11 ] Other tables include tables of lists, tables of inclusion/exclusion criteria for review, and summary of characteristics/results of study (systematic reviews) and characteristics of participants in narrative format (qualitative studies).[ 11 ]

A good table draws attention to the data and not the table itself; the reader should be able to express an opinion about results just by looking at it.[ 12 ] It should neither be too long nor wide; designing more rows than columns makes it easier to scan in portrait orientation.[ 9 , 11 ] JPGM guidelines permit a maximum of 10 columns and 25 rows in a table.[ 10 ] They are generally created from word documents as insert table and constructed before writing the content in text.[ 9 ] Most tables consist of five basic components: title, rows, columns, data fields, and footnotes. The title/legend should be concise but sufficiently informative.[ 13 ] The first column generally lists the independent variables in rows while subsequent columns present the dependent data. Column and row headings should include group sizes and measurement units (preferably an international system of units). Stubs (row headings) on the left side of a table describe row contents and should also list numerical definitions for the data i.e. the median ± SD (normal distribution), median with IQR (non-normally distributed data), or percentages (dichotomous data)[ 9 , 14 ] Use fewest decimal points necessary for accurate reporting of data.[ 14 ] Columns should present statistical analysis and significance ( P values) to highlight key findings.[ 14 ] Use well-labeled columns with the same format throughout (mean or percentiles).[ 3 ]

Each cell (data field) should contain only one numerical value and never be blank [use dash (-), ellipsis (…) or designate as “no data”]. Abbreviations should be limited; use abbreviations like “NA” very cautiously as it may be misinterpreted as not applicable/not available/not analyzed.[ 13 ] Combine tables when single variable is cross-tabulated or divide tables with too much of data.[ 7 ]

Footnotes should be brief, define abbreviations, statistical results ( P values and level of significance) and explain restrictions/discrepancies in the data. Footnotes should be ordered starting with the title of the table and working downwards from left to right. Symbols applying to the entire table should be in the title and those applying to the entire row/column should be after the row/column heading.[ 13 ] Most journals prefer superscripted letters instead of numbers. Symbols recommended by JPGM for footnotes (in order) are: *, †, ‡, §, ||, ¶, **, ††, ‡‡.[ 10 ]

Alignment and formatting: All text should be aligned to the left and numbers to the right.[ 7 ] Data fields with decimal points, hyphens/slashes, plus/minus symbols, or parentheses are aligned to these elements. For stubs continuing onto a second line, the corresponding data field should be aligned to the top line of the stub.[ 13 ] Tables can be made more meaningful, by converting data to ratios/percentages and sorting data as per the significance of variables, generally from left to right and top to bottom.[ 7 ] Data included in tables should conform with those in the main text, and percentages in rows and columns should sum up accurately.

Most journals have specific instructions for gridlines – only the top and bottom horizontal lines are used, with no vertical lines as columns are inherently aligned.[ 7 ] If tables are used from other publications, copyright permission should be obtained to reproduce them, and they should be appropriately referenced in the legend. There may be limitations as to the number of tables allowed depending on the Journal instructions and the type of article. Some Do's and Don'ts while creating tables are summarized in Table 1 .[ 8 , 9 , 12 , 14 , 15 ] Also, a representative table already published in the JPGM earlier has been reproduced herewith for better understanding [ Figure 1 ].

Use of figures

Figures are powerful communication tools that display patterns that are not visualized in the text or the tables. They can achieve a high educational impact by sustaining readers' interest and helping them understand trends, patterns, relationships among concepts and sequence of events.[ 3 ] Like tables, figures should be complete and self-explanatory. They should be designed thoughtfully, be relevant and be of good quality.[ 5 ] There may be limitations as to the number of figures allowed depending on the Journal instructions and type of the article. Figures can be statistical (graphs- as explained later) and non-statistical (clinical images, photographs, diagrams, illustrations and textual figures).[ 16 ] Non-statistical figures present visual information without data.[ 16 ] Clinical images and photographs [ultrasonograms, X-rays, computed tomography (CT) scans, magnetic resonance (MR) scans, images of patients, intraoperative photographs, tissue samples or microscopy findings] provide convincing and substantial information through illustrative examples from specific individuals and engage audiences, especially clinical professionals.[ 5 ] Illustrations help to explain structures, mechanisms, and relationships. Diagrams like “flowcharts”, “algorithms”, “pedigree charts”, and “maps” display complex relationships while “textual figures” describe steps of a procedure or summarize guidelines.

Structure: Figure legends (maximum of 40 words excluding credits) should be double-spaced and identified by consecutive Arabic numerals with the corresponding citation in the text. They reflect the data within, and consist of a brief title, experimental/statistical details, definitions of symbols/line or bar patterns and abbreviations/annotations.[ 15 ] Labels, numbers, and symbols should be clear, consistent, of uniform size and large enough to be legible after fitting figures to publication size.[ 15 ] Symbols, arrows, numbers, or letters used to identify parts of illustrations should be clearly identified, properly sized, placed, and explained in the legend. In case of photomicrographs, contrast the symbols/letters or arrows with background, and describe the internal scale (magnification) and method of staining.[ 10 ] If the figure has several parts (”collage”), they should be presented in order from left to right and top to bottom; this should be similarly followed for their description in the legend with labeling done as a, b, c, d, etc.[ 14 ]

Photos should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi before digital manipulation, the acceptable formats for pictures/photos and figures in various journals being pdf, doc, ppt, jpg, gif, and tiff. Publication of color images may be chargeable which should be checked beforehand.[ 9 ] Often the print version of journal may present black and white images, with color images used in the online version.

Line diagrams: Black and white art with no shading often illustrates content better than a photograph, especially in the case of body anatomy or surgical techniques.[ 9 ] Their line weight should be consistent and not less than 0.25 pt. If scanned, they should be submitted as a tiff/jpeg image of at least 600 dpi and a width of 15 cm/6 inches.[ 14 ] Creating line diagrams may involve expensive professional help with issues of exclusive rights. Simple drawings can be scanned in a conventional office scanner at a minimum resolution of 600 dpi.[ 9 ] Drawings in shades of grey require a resolution of 1200 dpi or more, usually unavailable in regular office scanners.[ 9 ]

X-rays , which are photographic images, often lack good contrast, a problem magnified if the image must be enlarged. The quality of radiographs can be improved using Adobe Photoshop.[ 17 ] Figure captions in radiology should be utilized correctly and mention the modality, imaging plane and relevant technical information for images e.g. projection name on an x-ray, plane of a cross-sectional image, window setting of a CT section, and sequence name of an MR image.[ 17 ]

One may need to crop images to focus on the point of interest and maintain patient anonymity. Editing is usually done in tiff file format in software designed for image editing. Adjustments in brightness/contrast/color balance may help if raw image is not clear; however, it should not alter the meaning.[ 5 ] Colors should be easy to see (avoid yellow) and backgrounds should preferably be white. The tint should be no lower than 15%.[ 14 ] However, all digital modifications or enhancements of photographic images should be documented, step by step and the original raw files of unedited photographs/images should be available as supplementary files .[ 5 ]

Minimum resolution and design: Figures should be of high quality and resolution such that when final images are zoomed to 1600%, they should not blur or pixelate.[ 5 ] In case of reprints, care should be taken about picture quality.[ 3 ] JPGM requires a minimum resolution of 300 dpi or 1800 × 1600 pixels in TIFF format for digital images. Uploaded images should be within 4 MB in size and JPEG format. The JPGM also reserves the right to crop, rotate, reduce, or enlarge the photographs to an acceptable size.[ 10 ] One can use tools while creating figures and exporting data in another software; a few examples of open-source are Matplotlib (python plotting library), R, Inkscape, TikZ, PGF, GIMP, ImageMagick, D3 (Data-Driven-Documents), Cytoscape and Circos.[ 18 ]

Anonymity and Copyright: In the case of images, all unessential patient information or identifiers should be removed (masking or blurring only the eyes is no longer considered sufficient).[ 19 ] It is the author's responsibility to obtain written permission from the patient to use the photograph for educational purposes (whether the subject is identifiable or not) and archive it properly.[ 10 ] For images or descriptions that identify the patient, a statement about obtaining informed patient consent should be specified in the manuscript.[ 10 ] For figures published elsewhere, the original source should be acknowledged (via credit line in the figure legend) and the author should submit permission from copyright holder (usually the publisher) to reproduce the material before his/her manuscript is accepted.[ 3 , 19 ] Representative figure/s already published in the JPGM earlier have been reproduced herewith as an example [ Figure 2 ].

Use of graphs

Graphs allow the reader to visualize and compare data by highlighting patterns and relationships such as changes over time, frequency distribution, correlation, and relative share.[ 7 ] One should be precise with data values and presentation in graphs to avoid misinterpretation. Graphs can be created from data using the same software used for statistical analysis or by special programs. Depending on the results, data can be depicted in several different formats, such as line graphs, bar charts, data plots, maps, and pie charts.

What to use and when: The graphical format (bar graph, line graph, scatter lot, dot plot) can be decided based on the type of relationship to be shown. For example, line graphs demonstrate trends, bar graphs show magnitudes and pie charts show proportions.[ 9 , 16 ] The preferred graph also depends on the representative value of data – absolute value/fraction/average/median.[ 20 ] Graphs should accurately present findings, scale should start at zero and the axes should not be altered to make data meaningful.[ 15 ] Pie charts and 3D graphs are generally not recommended.[ 5 ] Table 2 summarizes different graphical formats with their brief description and uses.[ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 20 , 21 ]

How to draw/construct: Most statistical programs create graphs with statistical computations. Special programs such as Prism and Sigmaplot can also be used.[ 14 ] Different formats can be visualized in the statistical program, and the one that best depicts the data can be chosen.[ 3 ] Actual numbers from which graphs are drawn should be provided.[ 10 ] Components of graphs include axes, labels, scales, tick/reference marks, symbols, and legends.[ 21 ] Independent variables are plotted on the horizontal axis while dependent variables on vertical axis.[ 4 ] Axis labels should be short, clear and indicate measurement variable/result, units, and number of group subjects (if any).[ 7 ] The axis scale should be proportional to data range so that visual data is not exaggerated/missed and minimum space is wasted.[ 20 ] Length of axes should be visually balanced (ratio of X to Y axis should be 1.0 to 1.3).[ 21 ] Provide explanations if the axis starts from non-zero values, is non-linear (logarithmic/exponential/rate) or scales before and after a break are different.[ 7 , 20 ] Symbols/lines/curves inside the two axes should be the most prominent features, wording in axes labels next prominent and axes and tick mark (outside of axes) least prominent.[ 21 ] Numbers and marks should be large enough to be legible even when compressed for print.[ 5 ] Symbols should be uniform and effectively used to designate important strata in figures. All graphs should be consistent in style and formatting. Footnotes should indicate P values (with appropriate statistical test) and discrepancies in data/items.[ 8 ]

A clear and concise legend (inside/outside) should describe the variables in the graph. It should also include values of lines, symbols and diagrams, abbreviations, acronyms as well as statistical tests, their levels of significance, sampling size, stains used for analysis, and magnification rate.[ 4 , 20 ] Annotations can highlight specific values/statistically significant differences in graphs.[ 20 ]

All unnecessary background lines (such as gridlines) are distracting and should be removed. The background should be the palest possible (preferably white) for the highest contrast and readability. Remove all default pre-styling formats and avoid 3D effects.[ 7 ] Data presentation can be intensified by eliminating clutter and refined in a vector graph editing program (without altering the position of marks representing data).[ 5 ] It is essential to minimize meaningless noise and maximize meaningful signals.[ 5 ]

Algorithms (combination of graph and table) are an excellent aid to demonstrate a decision tree. However, they can be difficult to construct due to decisions based on more than one variable. This presents clinical and technical difficulties in presenting all possible variations in a diagnosis or therapeutic decision.[ 9 ]

A representative graph and chart already published in the JPGM earlier has been reproduced herewith as an example [Figures ​ [Figures3 3 and ​ and4 4 ].

A representative graph already published in the JPGM earlier (reproduced from Bhatia S, Tullu MS, Kannan S, Gogtay NJ, Thatte UM, Lahiri KR. An unusual recurrence of antitubercular drug induced hepatotoxicity in a child. J Postgrad Med 2011;57:147-152 )

A representative chart already published in the JPGM earlier (reproduced from Agarwal S, Divecha C, Tullu MS, Deshmukh CT. A rare case of nephrotic syndrome: ‘Nailed’ the diagnosis. J Postgrad Med 2014;60:179-82 )

Use of supplementary materials

Supplementary materials refer to additional content (tables/graphs/appendices/videos/audios) that are not published in the main article. Scientific publications often come with strict word limits. Additional text or data which lengthens the print version can be accessed via digital supplementary files. Besides overcoming word restrictions, supplementary material provides additional information that is not essential in the main manuscript, but enhances understanding of research. They are available to interested readers to explore or replicate (methods/formulae/statistical models/algorithms/intervention pathways) the study for secondary research or teaching.[ 22 ] Thus, they serve as an online companion, complementing the main text. The most common supplementary files are tables and figures. Some instances of their use in various sections are as follows.[ 23 ]

In introduction: Table of summary of literature from various studies, detailed description of research topic, illustrations of concepts discussed, and glossaries of terms used.

In methodology: Participant details (sources, inclusion/exclusion lists, demography), instrumentation of constructs and variables, data collection techniques (survey questionnaires, participant forms), and data analysis techniques (coding sheets for content analysis, checklists) mathematical formulae used in calculations, data collection schedule.

In results and discussion: Additional results (often tables and figures), detailed analysis of limitations of the study or possible alternative explanations, programming code.

Other material includes references for supplementary files, translations, errata, audio, and video files.[ 23 ]

Examples of video/audio files include echocardiography recordings and ultrasound images. Specific information on the preparation of audio and video clips is available in the author guidelines. Video formats usually used are MPEG-4, QuickTime, or Windows media video. Audio supplements include WAV or MP3 format. Video size should be reduced to <10 MB and clips limited to 15–25 s. The resolution should be optimized by using video frame dimensions of 480 × 360 pixels and 640 × 480 pixels.[ 14 ]

However, supplemental material is available only in the online version- limiting immediate access to many readers.[ 5 ] Moreover, only readers with a strong interest in the research topic will access the online supplementary material.[ 5 ] The information in these files is often very extensive and not integrated with the main text appropriately, thus finding and extracting specific points from a supplement can be tedious.[ 24 ]

The utility of supplementary material varies as per the audience – additional tables and figures are more useful to readers, information about study protocol/data collection to peer reviewers, and completed checklists to journal editors. Due to the lack of guidance from journals (to both authors and reviewers) regarding its necessity or accuracy and due to the extensive nature of the files, supplementary material is rarely read/reviewed (though all the supplementary files are to be uploaded for peer-review with the main article files at the time of submission).[ 24 ] This increases the likelihood of missing errors in methods/analysis (submitted as supplementary files), thus placing the scientific accuracy and validity of the published research at risk.[ 24 ] Moreover, the availability of raw data to third parties via supplementary files raises concerns about security and data permanence.[ 22 ] The supplementary files often describe methods crucial to published research but are not included in references, thus many researchers remain uncited/unrecognized. Citations within supplementary material are also not appropriately tracked by citation indices. This can be overcome by direct hyperlinking sections of supplementary materials with the main manuscript.[ 24 ] Thus, supplementary data can be an asset if used thoughtfully; however, its indiscriminate use can hinder its actual purpose and be detrimental to the peer review process.

Concluding remarks

Tables, figures, graphs, and supplementary materials are vital tools which, when skillfully used, make complex data simple and clear to understand, within journal word restrictions. They engage and sustain interest and provide a brief visual summary narrative of study hypothesis- saving time and energy for readers, reviewers, and editors. They should be self-explanatory, complement the text and provide value to the paper. Producing clear, informative non-textual elements increases the chances of papers being published and read. Thus, the author should plan these elements early during the process of data collection/analysis and not as an afterthought. The author should have a good understanding of the types of data presentations and choose the simplest format that delivers his message best. They should be adapted to the journal's instructions to display and summarize essential content, without focusing too much on making it attractive or showcase one's technical expertise. Titles should be clear and simple, data should be consistent with results, and footnotes should be used effectively. Copyrights permissions, whenever necessary, should be obtained in advance and preserved appropriately.

• Translation

The Power of Visuals: Tips for presenting data with tables and figures

By charlesworth author services.

• 21 November, 2023

In academic writing, inclusion of figures and tables brings data into life. They turn complex data into a comprehensible narrative that is easy to follow. But, you may wonder, what sets figures apart from tables, and how do you strike the perfect balance in their presentation?

The Need for Tables and Figures

Imagine a paper without figures and tables. The research might be there, but it would lack the factor that makes it interesting and easy to understand. Scientific tables and figures efficiently present extensive statistical data in a condensed format. Due to their accessibility, readers often find it convenient to glance through these tables and figures, gaining a preliminary understanding of the study before delving into the complete manuscript. At the initial review phase, as well as upon publication, figures and tables provide a swift summary of the research findings for both journal editors and reviewers. It is crucial to emphasise that tables and figures contribute meaningfully to the manuscript only when they strike a balance between being concise and sufficiently descriptive.

Tips for Effective Data Presentation Using Tables and Figures:

Determining the appropriate number of figures and tables for a research paper is essential for effective communication. Here are some key considerations:

i. Purposeful Selection:

• Choose tables or figures based on the nature of your data. 

• Tables are suitable for presenting precise values and relationships, while figures are effective for visualising trends, patterns, or comparisons.

ii. Overlap Considerations:

• Avoiding overlap between figures and tables, as well as limiting overlap with the text, is crucial. 

• Each visual element should have its designated space to ensure clarity and prevent confusion. 

• Overlapping figures and tables can hinder the reader’s ability to focus on individual components. Similarly, too much overlap with the text can distract readers from the main narrative, so it's important to strike a balance and ensure a clear visual hierarchy.

iii. Formatting Requirements:

• Journals often set limits on the number of figures and tables allowed. 

• Authors should view these limitations as guidelines aimed at maintaining a balance between conciseness and informativeness. 

• Exceeding the prescribed limit may compromise the effectiveness of the presentation. Quality should be prioritised over quantity to enhance the overall impact of the visual elements.

iv. Consistency is Key:

• Maintain consistency in style and formatting throughout your visual elements. 

• This includes using the same color schemes, symbols, and fonts for better coherence.

v. Supplementary Figures and Tables:

• Supplementary figures and tables serve as additional resources to provide in-depth information. 

• While not integral to the main narrative, they offer further context or details. 

• Authors should use supplementary material judiciously, ensuring that each additional figure or table contributes value without overwhelming the reader. 

• Striking a balance is essential, with supplementary material serving a specific purpose rather than being overly abundant.

Components of Effective Tables

1. Caption:

• Purpose: Clearly states what the table represents.

• Content: Provides a concise summary or explanation of the table's content.

• Placement: Positioned above the table for quick reference.

2. Headings:

• Clarity: Clearly labels each column or row.

• Consistency: Maintains a consistent style throughout the table.

• Informative: Conveys essential information about the data presented.

3. Body Cells:

• Data Accuracy: Contains accurate and precise numerical information.

• Organisation: Presents data logically, following a clear structure.

• Formatting: Adheres to a consistent format for numerical values, including units.

4. Footnotes:

• Explanation: Provides additional information or clarifications for specific entries.

• Conciseness: Keeps footnotes brief and relevant.

• Position: Placed below the table for easy reference.

Components of Effective Figures

• Description: Summarises the main purpose or findings of the figure.

• Completeness: Offers enough information for readers to understand the figure without relying on the main text.

• Clarity: Ensures that the visual representation is clear and easy to interpret. Consider the size, resolution, and the image’s overall visual attractiveness.

• Accuracy: Accurately reflects the data or information being presented.

• Relevance: Aligns with the key points highlighted in the caption.

3. Legends:

• Clarity: Clearly explains symbols, colors, or any other elements used in the figure.

• Conciseness: Provides necessary information without unnecessary details.

• Placement: Located strategically to avoid cluttering the figure.

4. Axis Labels:

• Precision: Clearly labels x and y-axes in graphs or any other relevant axes.

• Units: Includes units of measurement to avoid ambiguity.

• Orientation: Ensures that labels are easily readable and not crowded.

5. Data Points:

• Differentiation: Clearly distinguishes between various data points.

• Consistency: Maintains a consistent style for data points throughout the figure.

• Highlighting: Uses markers or colors to emphasise key data, if applicable.

6. Trend Lines or Bars:

• Interpretability: Ensures that trend lines or bars are easily understood.

• Context: Places trend lines or bars in relation to the overall figure.

• Consistency: Follows a consistent style if multiple trends are represented.

Navigating Common Pitfalls and Implementing Actionable Tips for Authors

Lack of context is a prevalent issue, where figures or tables are presented without sufficient contextual information, making interpretation challenging. Providing clear captions and additional explanations in the text can remedy this issue. Misleading scaling is a potential pitfall, with authors manipulating scales to exaggerate or minimise trends. To avoid misinterpretation, it's important to present data accurately and communicate the scale used clearly. Overemphasis on aesthetics at the expense of clarity and accuracy is another pitfall to be cautious about. Balancing aesthetics with functionality ensures that visuals effectively communicate the intended message. Finally, excessive detail in visuals can hinder comprehension. Authors should highlight essential information, using supplementary materials for additional details while keeping the main visuals concise.

Improving the quality of tables and figures involves actionable strategies. Authors should start by prioritizing information, identifying key messages, and focusing on the most relevant data. Testing interpretability by seeking feedback from colleagues or peers helps authors refine visuals for a broader audience. Simplifying complex data and choosing appropriate visualisation types are additional strategies to enhance understanding. Consistent and accurate labeling throughout visuals, paying attention to units of measurement, abbreviations, and other details, ensures clarity. By avoiding common pitfalls and implementing these actionable tips, authors can significantly enhance the quality and effectiveness of their tables and figures, turning them into valuable tools for conveying research findings.

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Effective use of tables and figures in abstracts, presentations, and papers

Affiliation.

• 1 Department of Anesthesiology, University of Virginia Health Science Center, PO Box 800710, Charlottesville, VA 22908-0170, USA. [email protected]
• PMID: 15447809

In some situations, tables, graphs, and figures can present certain types of information (including complicated relationships and sequences of events) more clearly and in less space than the same information would require in sentence form. However, do not use tables, graphs, and figures for small amounts of data that could be conveyed clearly and succinctly in a sentence. Also, do not reiterate in sentences the data that are shown in a table, graph, or figure: the point of creating a table or graph or figure is to eliminate that type of sentence from your manuscript. In building a data table you must balance the necessity that the table be complete with the equally important necessity that it not be too complex. Sometimes it is helpful to break a large table into several smaller ones to allow the reader to identify important information easily, but, conversely, it is a common mistake of novice authors to split up into several tables data that belong in one table. In almost all cases, only one table or graph or figure should be included in an abstract, and then only if it can convey essential information in less space and in a more easily interpretable way than the sentence form. For a poster, in almost all instances you should use only one typeface and one font in a table, graph, or figure. In general, do not use bold, italics, or color unless you are presenting a great deal of data and you need to highlight certain data values and you are certain that using bold, italics, or color will improve readability, which is rare. Do not include identical information in a table and a graph/figure. In reporting a clinical trial you will need to include a patient flow chart that identifies the number of patients initially screened for the study, the number of patients who were excluded (and why) after initial screening or in the final analysis, and how many patients entered, exited early, and completed each arm of the study. A treatment protocol should also be described with a flow chart. In preparing a graph the most common error is to include a line that suggests an unsubstantiated extrapolation between or beyond the data points. In selecting the graph's axes, avoid truncating, enlarging, or compressing the axes in ways that might make the graph confusing or misleading. To prepare clear, accurate, easily interpretable tables, graphs, and figures, rely on the rules described in authoritative guides such as the Council of Science Editors' Scientific Style and Format and the American Medical Association's Manual of Style.

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Effective Use of Tables and Figures in Research Papers

Research papers are often based on copious amounts of data that can be summarized and easily read through tables and graphs. When writing a research paper , it is important for data to be presented to the reader in a visually appealing way. The data in figures and tables, however, should not be a repetition of the data found in the text. There are many ways of presenting data in tables and figures, governed by a few simple rules. An APA research paper and MLA research paper both require tables and figures, but the rules around them are different. When writing a research paper, the importance of tables and figures cannot be underestimated. How do you know if you need a table or figure? The rule of thumb is that if you cannot present your data in one or two sentences, then you need a table .

Using Tables

Tables are easily created using programs such as Excel. Tables and figures in scientific papers are wonderful ways of presenting data. Effective data presentation in research papers requires understanding your reader and the elements that comprise a table. Tables have several elements, including the legend, column titles, and body. As with academic writing, it is also just as important to structure tables so that readers can easily understand them. Tables that are disorganized or otherwise confusing will make the reader lose interest in your work.

• Title: Tables should have a clear, descriptive title, which functions as the “topic sentence” of the table. The titles can be lengthy or short, depending on the discipline.
• Column Titles: The goal of these title headings is to simplify the table. The reader’s attention moves from the title to the column title sequentially. A good set of column titles will allow the reader to quickly grasp what the table is about.
• Table Body: This is the main area of the table where numerical or textual data is located. Construct your table so that elements read from up to down, and not across.

Related: Done organizing your research data effectively in tables? Check out this post on tips for citing tables in your manuscript now!

The placement of figures and tables should be at the center of the page. It should be properly referenced and ordered in the number that it appears in the text. In addition, tables should be set apart from the text. Text wrapping should not be used. Sometimes, tables and figures are presented after the references in selected journals.

Using Figures

Figures can take many forms, such as bar graphs, frequency histograms, scatterplots, drawings, maps, etc. When using figures in a research paper, always think of your reader. What is the easiest figure for your reader to understand? How can you present the data in the simplest and most effective way? For instance, a photograph may be the best choice if you want your reader to understand spatial relationships.

• Figure Captions: Figures should be numbered and have descriptive titles or captions. The captions should be succinct enough to understand at the first glance. Captions are placed under the figure and are left justified.
• Image: Choose an image that is simple and easily understandable. Consider the size, resolution, and the image’s overall visual attractiveness.
• Additional Information: Illustrations in manuscripts are numbered separately from tables. Include any information that the reader needs to understand your figure, such as legends.

Common Errors in Research Papers

Effective data presentation in research papers requires understanding the common errors that make data presentation ineffective. These common mistakes include using the wrong type of figure for the data. For instance, using a scatterplot instead of a bar graph for showing levels of hydration is a mistake. Another common mistake is that some authors tend to italicize the table number. Remember, only the table title should be italicized .  Another common mistake is failing to attribute the table. If the table/figure is from another source, simply put “ Note. Adapted from…” underneath the table. This should help avoid any issues with plagiarism.

Using tables and figures in research papers is essential for the paper’s readability. The reader is given a chance to understand data through visual content. When writing a research paper, these elements should be considered as part of good research writing. APA research papers, MLA research papers, and other manuscripts require visual content if the data is too complex or voluminous. The importance of tables and graphs is underscored by the main purpose of writing, and that is to be understood.

Frequently Asked Questions

"Consider the following points when creating figures for research papers: Determine purpose: Clarify the message or information to be conveyed. Choose figure type: Select the appropriate type for data representation. Prepare and organize data: Collect and arrange accurate and relevant data. Select software: Use suitable software for figure creation and editing. Design figure: Focus on clarity, labeling, and visual elements. Create the figure: Plot data or generate the figure using the chosen software. Label and annotate: Clearly identify and explain all elements in the figure. Review and revise: Verify accuracy, coherence, and alignment with the paper. Format and export: Adjust format to meet publication guidelines and export as suitable file."

"To create tables for a research paper, follow these steps: 1) Determine the purpose and information to be conveyed. 2) Plan the layout, including rows, columns, and headings. 3) Use spreadsheet software like Excel to design and format the table. 4) Input accurate data into cells, aligning it logically. 5) Include column and row headers for context. 6) Format the table for readability using consistent styles. 7) Add a descriptive title and caption to summarize and provide context. 8) Number and reference the table in the paper. 9) Review and revise for accuracy and clarity before finalizing."

"Including figures in a research paper enhances clarity and visual appeal. Follow these steps: Determine the need for figures based on data trends or to explain complex processes. Choose the right type of figure, such as graphs, charts, or images, to convey your message effectively. Create or obtain the figure, properly citing the source if needed. Number and caption each figure, providing concise and informative descriptions. Place figures logically in the paper and reference them in the text. Format and label figures clearly for better understanding. Provide detailed figure captions to aid comprehension. Cite the source for non-original figures or images. Review and revise figures for accuracy and consistency."

"Research papers use various types of tables to present data: Descriptive tables: Summarize main data characteristics, often presenting demographic information. Frequency tables: Display distribution of categorical variables, showing counts or percentages in different categories. Cross-tabulation tables: Explore relationships between categorical variables by presenting joint frequencies or percentages. Summary statistics tables: Present key statistics (mean, standard deviation, etc.) for numerical variables. Comparative tables: Compare different groups or conditions, displaying key statistics side by side. Correlation or regression tables: Display results of statistical analyses, such as coefficients and p-values. Longitudinal or time-series tables: Show data collected over multiple time points with columns for periods and rows for variables/subjects. Data matrix tables: Present raw data or matrices, common in experimental psychology or biology. Label tables clearly, include titles, and use footnotes or captions for explanations."

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Using Images and Non-Textual Materials in Presentations, Papers, Theses, and Dissertations

• Documenting and Citing Images
• Finding Images - Select Sources

Documenting and Citing Images/Photographs and Their Sources

Please note that this is advice on best practices and considerations in documenting and citing images and non-print materials. It does not represent legal advice on obtaining permissions.

Generally, images copied from other sources should not be used without permissions in publications or for commercial purposes. Many American academic institutions require graduate students to archive their finished and approved theses/dissertations in institutional electronic repositories and/or institutional libraries and repositories, and/or to post them on Proquest's theses database. Unpublished theses and dissertations are a form of scholarly dissemination. Someone else's images, like someone else's ideas, words or music, should be used with critical commentary, and need to be identified and cited. If a thesis/dissertation is revised for publication,  waivers or permissions from the copyright holder(s) of the images and non-textual materials must be obtained. Best practices also apply to materials found on the internet and on social media, and, properly speaking, require identification, citation, and clearance of permissions, as relevant.

Use the following elements when identifying and citing an image, depending on the information you have available . It is your responsibility to do due diligence and document as much as possible about the image you are using:

• Artist's/creator's name, if relevant;
• Title of the work/image, if known, or description;
• Ownership information (such as a person, estate, museum, library collection) and source of image;
• Material, if known, particularly for art works;
• Dimensions of the work, if known.

The Chicago Manual of Style online can be searched for norms on appropriate ways to caption illustrations, capitalize titles of visual works, or cite print materials that contain images.

Including images/photographs in a bibliography:

Best practice is to not include images within a bibliography of works cited. It is common, instead, to create a separate list of images (or figures) and their source, such as photographer (even if it's you) or collection. It may be useful to also include location, e.g., museum, geographic reference, address, etc.

Examples of Documenting Images

The image below is scanned from a published book. It can be used in a critical context within a presentation, classroom session, or  paper/thesis, as follows:

[ Figure 1. This photograph from 1990 shows the Monument against Fascism designed by Jochen Gerz and Esther Shalev-Gerz, Hamburg, 1986-1993. Image from James Young, ed.,  Art of Memory: Holocaust Memorials in History (New York: Prestel, 1994), 70]

If you need to use this image in a published work, you will have to seek permission. For example, the book from which this image was scanned should have a section on photo credits which would help you identify the person/archive holding this image.

The image below was found through Google Images and downloaded from the internet. It can be used in a critical context within a presentation,  classroom session, or paper/thesis, as follows:

[Figure 2. This image shows the interior of Bibliotheca Alexandrina designed by the Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta in 2001. Image downloaded from https://mgkhs.com/gallery/alexandria in March 2016.]

If you want to use this image in a published work, you will have to do your best to track down its source to request permission to use. The web site or social media site where you found the image may not be an appropriate source, since it is common for people to repost images without attribution. Just because "everyone does it" does not mean that you should be using such materials without attribution or documentation. In this specific example, you may need to write to the photographer or to the architecture firm. If you have done due diligence and were unable to find the source, or have not received a response, you may be able to use an image found on the internet with appropriate documentation in a publication.

The image below was downloaded from a digitized historic collection of photographs held by an institutional archive. It can be used in a critical context within a presentation,  classroom session, or paper/thesis, as follows:

[Figure 3. In the 1920s the urban landscape of Los Angeles started to change, as various developers began building multi-family apartment houses in sections previously zoned for single family dwellings. Seen in this photograph by Dick Whittington is the Warrington apartment building, which was completed in 1928, surrounded by older single family structures. Downloaded from the USC Digital Library in February 2016]

I f you plan to use this photograph in a publication, seek permission from the library/institution from whose digital archive you downloaded the image. Contact information is usually found in the record for the image.

The image below was taken by the author. It can be used in a critical context within a presentation, classroom session , paper/thesis, or a publication* as follows:

[Figure 4. Genex Tower, also known as West City Gate, is a residential tower located in New Belgrade. This example of late 20th century brutalist-style architecture was designed in 1977 by Mihajlo Mitrović. Photographed by the author in 2013.]

*Please note, if you re-photographed someone else's photograph or a work of art, or if you re-photographed a published image, you may not be able to publish your photograph without first seeking permission or credit for its content.  If you have done due diligence and were unable to find the source or have not received a response, you may be able to use your image with appropriate documentation.

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Write Like a Scientist

A Guide to Scientific Communication

Using visuals

Imagine that you want to convey to your readers how a particular experiment was set up. Below we present two options:

• To the positive terminal of a power supply was attached a resistor and a voltmeter connected in parallel. To the other end of the resistor was attached an ammeter, which was also connected to a switch. The negative terminal of the battery was connected to the other end of the switch as well as to the ground.
• (See Figure 1, right)

Which of these two methods makes the experimental setup most clear? Sure, you can figure out what option 1 is saying, but only once we mentally draw an image something like Figure 1.

In another instance, perhaps you have 8 sets of data and calculations you want to report for each of 5 steps in a purification process. Here’s what it might look like written out:

The original lysate (50 mL) had an activity of 0.675 μM/min, resulting in a total activity of 6800 U. Protein content for the lysate was measured as 0.96 mg/mL, so total protein in the sample was 48 mg while Specific Activity was 141 U/mg. Once purified with 65% salt fractionation, the sample (33 mL) had a measured activity of 0.354 μM/min….

… Well, you get the idea. And that was only getting to the second of the 5 steps! This information would much more easily be communicated in a table, like this:

This method of data representation is far more concise. Plus, now, readers can absorb the information at their own pace and in their own way and easily compare values across columns and rows.

Clearly, in some cases, it is better to use a visual of some kind to present information. In other cases, it can be more concise to use words. For example, look at the following graph:

Could there be an easier way to present this data in words? One possibility is exactly what is stated in the caption: “Percent recovery of compound X decreases linearly with temperature.” Although it might seem like a graph is just as clear, since the words are far more concise, the words alone are actually preferred.

When should I use a visual?

First, remember that conciseness is a critical part of scientific writing. For that reason, visuals are used only when text is insufficient. Second, remember that when you write, you are telling a story ; figures and tables are two ways in which you can add to your story and make it more compelling by giving evidence to back up your claims.

Figures are best used to show  trends  in or  relationships between data as well as pictorial representations of experimental components. Tables are for showing purely qualitative data, such as a relationship between organisms and their optimal habitat type, as well as data between which you are not attempting to show any trend or relationship.  In rare cases, you can use both a figure and a table, such as if you want to provide all of the data in a table but highlight an important relationship among some of these data in a graph; however, you must never simply repeat all of the same information in 2 formats. Schemes are used to show a progression of steps, such as a chemical reaction. Depending on the discipline and publication, the information in a scheme may be presented in a figure or as an equation, instead.

Figures make up a large category of visuals that includes graphs, diagrams, photos, maps, and more.

• Graphs are the most common type of figure found in the scientific literature because they can convey large amounts of information very clearly.
• Diagrams are useful any time you want to symbolically represent a potentially complicated idea to make it more easily understood. They are more common in posters, where even an experimental outline might be made into a diagram to make it more accessible to a given audience.
• Photos are uncommon in fields like chemistry and physics, since they study phenomena smaller than on the microscale, but may be useful in biology or geology to show something like a sample or sampling site.
• Maps are used almost exclusively in geology, where they can be useful for showing the location of a study or sampling, movement across an area, and other instances when knowledge of an exact location is useful.

Graphs and tables are most commonly used in the results section of a paper or poster, whereas diagrams and pictures are more likely to appear in your methods section. However, any table or type of figure can be used anywhere in a paper as long as it is relevant and useful to the reader.

How do I use visuals in my text?

Each figure, table, and/or scheme should be numbered separately from one another starting from “1” as they appear throughout your paper. That means that after Figure 1 and Figure 2 you might have Table 1 followed by Figure 3.

In a journal article, every figure, table, and scheme must be referred to in the text before the visual itself appears. Following are some examples of what this might look like:

This nucleotide was often a conserved G (Figure 1).

The symmetry varies gradually from a symmetric bar to an asymmetric oval (Fig. 3A).

Higher yields were obtained using compounds B and F (Table 1).

The general procedure for alkylating these products is shown in Scheme 4.

In general, it is better to parenthetically refer to a visual, such as in the first 3 examples, rather than use a whole sentence just to mention the visual. Notice that when referred to in the text, “Figure” is sometimes abbreviated to “Fig.”

Composition

After you’ve directed your reader to the visual, you have to make sure that the visual itself is properly constructed. Every figure and table in a paper must be understandable without your Results text or other supporting explanation. That means that it needs a legend and possibly footnotes, if it’s a table.

In addition to a good legend, be sure that your visual is as simple as possible while still conveying all the necessary information, which will help your reader avoid distractions and better understand your meaning. In general, this means that extra lines, symbols, colors, and words in your visual that don’t need to be there shouldn’t be there. For more information on how to achieve this, see the sections below on formatting figures and tables.

If you have a complete visual, you don’t need to repeat everything from the figure or table in your text . In fact, its a waste of space! Tables should replace text, not duplicate it; figures should highlight trends in data, which can be summarized in your text.

The most common area for figures and tables is your results section, where you’ll be presenting brand new data to your reader. Data don’t tell their own story–that’s your job as the expert on your project. So, after you refer audience to your visual, highlight for your audience what is novel or particularly interesting or surprising about your data. But remember to steer clear of redundancy!

Below are some examples of figures and tables, accompanied by the text the authors used to describe them. The section of the paper from which the visual was taken is also provided for comparison.

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Click to see examples

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How to construct figures

Whether you choose to use a diagram, graph, spectrum, photo, map, or other type of figure to present information, there are a few general principles of formatting that you should keep in mind.

A figure should always include a legend underneath, which tells your reader about your figure and explains any symbols, acronyms, abbreviations, or other details that your audience may need to know to fully understand it. At the very least, your legend must include:

• an identifier, such as “Figure 1.” The identifier might be in bold or end with a period to separate it from the rest of the legend. In some cases, the identifier might be abbreviated (“Fig. 1”).
• a short descriptive sentence following the identifier, which acts as the title of your figure.

The amount of detail included in the full legend will depend on the preferences of your instructor or journal in addition to the content of your figure itself. Compare the following three examples and notice what kinds of details each includes in its legend.

“Figure 1,” above, gives you an identifier and a title but no other details about the spectrum–presumably, the author went into greater detail about its meaning in the text. “Figure 2” gives a little more information and refers the reader to other figures for more information. “Figure 4,” however, does not provide a particularly descriptive title (“Measurement fidelity,” only), and instead goes into great detail to explain symbols, variables, decay times and equations.

Some publications have traditionally recommended avoiding the use of color in figures. The reasoning behind this is that photocopying will muddle any meaning you intended through the colors and therefore make the image harder to interpret. But as technology progresses and black/white copies are becoming uncommon, this is becoming less of an issue. Regardless, color should always be  meaningful , not just pretty. It is also still important to ensure that colors are distinguishable when printed in grayscale and that your figures are understandable by those with colorblindness whenever possible.

Finally, remember that figure titles are part of the legend. Therefore, do not include an additional title above the image itself, such as in the following graph:

The exception to this in in posters , where the more obvious title can be valuable to readers who are looking at your figures at a glance or may not be able to see the legend as closely. Inclusion of the secondary title is optional.

Graphs come in numerous varieties, many of which you are probably familiar with, including line, bar, pie, box, and scatter plots.  Most graphs share the same general features, as diagrammed below:

Notice that in the figure above, the author chose not to include an X-axis label (which would probably have read: “Phanerozoic Intervals). Most graphs have both X- and Y-axis labels, so why not this one? The reason is that the author instead chose to give us this information in the legend, while identifying each of the category labels that fall under this larger subject. If he had used an X-axis label, it likely would have been overly redundant.

Graphs are evidence to support claims you make in your discussion. It is therefore extremely important that you show trends clearly, in order to be convincing. Also be sure to always use error bars when plotting means so that the significance of your data is clear from looking at the graph.

Following are a few other formatting guidelines that are good to keep in mind while making a graph.

• Some journals prefer that the key to your graph be in the legend (e.g. “♦ = spotted owl”); others prefer it in the graph itself.
• When applicable, you should plot the dependent variable on the y-axis and the independent variable on the x-axis.
• Always include any units next to axis labels, often in parentheses (e.g. “Frequency (%)” or “Dose (μg/mL)”).
• Keep your figure as clear and simple as possible, avoiding all unnecessary lines, colors, words, and symbols.

As you may know, there are many different types of graphs that can be used for a variety of purposes. Below is a summary of some common graph types and their common uses in the scientific literature.

There are a nearly infinite number of diagram types that you could utilize in a paper, so we won’t go over how to construct a diagram here. However, always be sure that you aren’t using a diagram just to add an appealing visual to your paper, when words would suffice. In addition, because diagrams are used for clarity and simplicity, it is important to keep as uncluttered as possible–only include the details you need to convey information.

Diagrams can be used with more freedom in posters, since visuals are easier to understand quickly and from a distance. In a poster, but not a journal article or a research proposal, you might consider using a diagram to outline your experimental approach or to summarize a conclusion that could also be communicated fairly easily in words.

Ensure that photos are of the highest quality possible and are cropped from any unnecessary surroundings. It is also a good idea to enhance the contrast of a photo so that it will still be clear after photocopying and without color. In many instances it is also recommended that, if possible and appropriate, you replace a photo with an illustration, in order to make it more simple and direct.

Like any visual or information in your paper, a photo that you did not take yourself must be attributed to the original artist in the legend.

Maps should almost always include:

• A north arrow
• A metric scale
• A contour interval, if appropriate
• Indications of latitude and longitude

If needed, be sure to also include an index map of locations.

Don’t include a spectrum to simply verify the identity of a compound, since that can easily be achieved through an in-text statement like, “The identity of compound X was verified by NMR analysis.”

If they are appropriate to include, however, spectra should be developed using appropriate software and simplified to the same extent as recommended for graphs. Be sure to identify and explain important peaks or trends shown by your figure in its legend or in the text. An example of well-developed spectra along with their descriptions are shown below.

How to construct schemes

Schemes can be used to depict steps in a series, such as a chemical reaction.

In general, schemes should:

• Include labels for all compounds and structures referred to in the text, but not for auxiliary compounds.
• Have a title of at least an identifier, such as “Scheme 1,” that is numbered separately from all figures and tables.
• Use abbreviations where possible.

Schemes can be relatively simple, involving only one complete reaction, like the following example from Vecchi et al. (2015) :

Or, they can involve numerous steps, like this example from Nonn et al. (2015) :

If they are unnecessary, the drawings of the chemical structures shoulb be left out. In this example from Trabelsi, Szönyi, and Geribaldi (2001) , the authors decided that illustrations were unnecessary to convey the meaning of their reaction:

Notice how the schemes above use various levels of detail after the scheme identifier (e.g. “Scheme 1.”). A lengthy legend shouldn’t be used with a scheme since chemical reactions themselves are descriptive. Like most formatting details, whether the scheme title goes above or below the scheme also depends on the journal you’re publishing in.

And remember– consistency is what matters in formatting! If you use multiple schemes in a paper, poster, or proposal, make sure to format all of them in the same way.

The hardest part about creating a scheme is properly drawing the chemical structures and reactions themselves. Software tools such as ChemDraw can make this process infinitely easier. Members of the Middlebury community can download ChemDraw for free by following this link .

Finally, remember that depending on the discipline and publisher, it might be preferred to convey the same information using a figure or an equation rather than a scheme format. Schemes are most common in organic chemistry contexts. Check with your instructor for his or her preference if you plan to use a scheme in a paper.

How to construct tables

First, you’ll need to know what the different parts of a table are called. Here is a diagram (adapted from a table in  Upadhyayula et al. 2009 ) to illustrate:

The identifier, title, column titles, and data are pretty self-explanatory. But what about the legend and footnotes? In most journals, the table legend doesn’t contain more than the identifier and title. In some cases, however, it contains additional information about the table that the reader may need to understand it, such as explanations of symbols and acronyms. Footnotes can often convey similar types of information, but are usually more detailed; for example, footnotes might give the exact significance value of numbers labeled with an * (asterisk). Because the kinds of information that can go in a legend or footnotes can be redundant, tables rarely have both an explanatory legend and footnotes.

Although it might be tempting to use tables whenever possible, conciseness means that you shouldn’t use a table to present only a few pieces of information. For example, the following table is unnecessary:

Participants were 48% male (n=32) and 53% female (n=35).

Which takes up only one line of text instead of more than three. In general, you should only use tables when you have at least 3 rows and 3 columns of data.

Look at the following four examples, each taken from a different scientific discipline. What is the same among the tables? What aspects are different? From top to bottom, examples are adapted from: Stensvold et al. (2015), Armstrong et al. (2005), Sato et al. (2013), and Loreto et al. (2013) .

Here’s what we came up with:

If you were able to identify more similarities or differences, that’s great!

All of the differences between the tables are details that are specifically defined differently by most journals. Note that in almost all cases, table titles and legends go on top, as shown in the examples–but in a few journals, these go on the bottom. You might have also noticed that all the table titles are printed in bold; however, this, too, depends on a journal’s specifications. As you read through articles on similar subjects to the one you might be writing, notice how they tend to format their tables. In general, certain disciplines adopt similar formatting styles despite small differences between publications.

Remember, specific formatting rules in journals are strict and differ from one publication to another. But we can give you a few general guidelines that will apply to most of the journal articles, posters, and research proposals you might write in your coursework.

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Tools for creating scientific illustrations

Most people quickly browse a research paper before deciding if they want to invest time in reading it. Great scientific illustrations are one of the keys that can turn the decision in your favor.

Here are two ways of explaining what DNA is. Which one do you think will attract more attention? Which one is easier to perceive?

Explanation No.1: This polymer is made of a double-stranded tertiary molecular structure with sugar-phosphate backbone to which base pairs consisting of four chemical bases (adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine) are attached.

Explanation No.2:

As you can see from the DNA example, a scientific illustration can be a very powerful means of explaining scientific principles. For example:

• A visualization can allow demonstrating scientific models and replace photographs (e.g. when it is impossible to make photography).
• A schematic can draw attention to the key components of a device.
• A good flow chart can allow the viewer to quickly understand a research methodology.

Whether it is a research paper, a conference presentation, a research proposal, or a classroom lecture, diagrams, schematics, drawings, images, and other forms of scientific illustrations are all an important part of academic communication. 

Let’s look at the tools that will help you to develop scientific illustrations.

Creating 2D images

Adobe Illustrator is the go-to software many professionals use for creating and editing vector graphics. In case you are not familiar with the term, vector graphics refer to images that are defined in terms of points and lines, rather than static pixels of color like it is in raster graphics. This has the advantage that images can be scaled up without becoming blurry. Many journals prefer the illustration to be created this way and it will also come in handy when you want to show an image on a big screen at a conference. Cost: Yes.

Inkscape is an open-source alternative to Illustrator and it can do many of the same things without breaking the bank. There is also a strong Inkscape user community for when you hit a wall. Cost: free.

VectorStock offers a large selection of vector images that you might use for your illustrations, posters, social media updates, and the like. Being vector graphics, you will be able to modify them using the tools above.

Mind the graph is a platform for medical scientists and life sciences in general. It offers icons and various scientific illustrations that you can mix and use for papers, presentations, teaching, or creating infographics. Cost: yes.

Bio Render is similar to Mind the Graph and offers many icons that are purposefully designed for life sciences. You can drag and drop them to create your own scientific illustration. Cost: yes.

Adobe Sketchbook is a free drawing software by Adobe. It is especially nice if you own a digital drawing pad or a tablet. I used Sketchbook for creating all the illustrations for the Peer Recognized series books. Cost: free.

Krita is an open-source alternative to Adobe Sketchbook. Cost: free.

Creating 3D images

A scientific illustration in 3D can add a sort of a “reality feeling” to a concept that you are presenting. It will also come in handy in cases when making photography is difficult or simply impossible.

3D visualizations can be especially useful in life sciences and biomedical science in particular. That is why in this list I included some extensions that can greatly simplify the visualization.

Maya is a professional-grade software for creating 3D images, rendering, and animation. Cost: a lot

Molecular Maya is an extension of Maya that is designed for modeling and animating molecular structures. Cost: free, but there are add-on kits that do have a cost

Blender animation suite is an open-source alternative for Maya. Cost: free

Bioblender is a molecular structure plug-in for Blender. Cost: free

There are, of course, many more 3D apps, including Solid Edge and 3ds Max that might be useful. Mostly the choice depends on which program you have experience with because even the best software will do you no good without an adequate skill set. The availability, of course, is another important aspect, because most 3D modeling programs can be pricy.

Make your research stand out using my Scientific Visualization Cheat Sheet .

Good visuals make your papers get noticed and presentations remembered. The Cheat Sheet will help you make this happen.

Tools for creating diagrams, posters, and infographics

Adobe InDesign is the go-to app professionals use for designing pages and creating graphics. This makes it very useful for creating professional-looking posters, flow-charts, and infographics.

Publisher is Microsoft’s version of page layout design software. Due to the general familiarity with Microsoft’s products, many might find it more intuitive than InDesign. Besides, it is quite possible that it already is installed on your PC. Cost: yes.

PowerPoint quite often might be the only tool you need for creating simple diagrams, infographics, and posters. I have used it for most of my posters. Cost: yes

MS Visio is designed for creating complex diagrams and flow-charts. Although my flow-charts are quite simple, I use it as well because, from any of the Microsoft products, it does the job the best. Cost: yes, but it may already be on your PC.

Canva offers many stylish templates for creating infographics, posters, and illustrations for presentations. Cost: There is a free version and a premium upgrade with a larger library of images. I have found that the free version is enough, especially since I most often I use my own images.

Piktochart is similar to Canva as it allows the creation of infographics, posters, presentations, and graphics for social media. Cost: yes

Tools for editing and analyzing images

ImageJ is a Java-based open-source image processing software that was developed by the National Institutes of Health. It offers a wide functionality for analyzing and processing scientific images. There are many free plugins available, which might help you with many tasks. Plus, it has gathered a community of fans, so when you hit a roadblock, there is most likely someone who already found a way around it. Cost: free

Photoshop is perhaps the most powerful tool for editing images, and scientific illustrations are no exception. But remember there is a reason why “photoshopping” is used with a negative connotation nowadays. When creating scientific illustrations, you have to be unbias and disclose all the edits to images (e.g. microscopy images). Cost: yes.

GIMP is an open-source alternative to Photoshop. Many third-party plugins are available, that might help you with whatever task you have. Cost: free.

How to find free scientific illustrations

In many cases, you may not need to create your own illustrations. Someone might have already created an image that would be perfect for you. In some other cases, you might want to make some tweaks to an existing image using one of the image editing apps we looked at earlier.

The problem is, you are not allowed to simply use whatever you find online. Images are by default protected by copyright and you need permission from the author to re-use them publicly. Fortunately, many people choose to make their work publicly shareable.

Here are some tools that allow to find images that you can reuse freely. Check the license though. Even if you are allowed to re-use them, in most cases you are obliged to give attribution to the author.

NOA is a search engine built specifically for scientific illustrations. Its collection is made of millions of images from open-access journals. Before using them, though, double-check the license on the webpage of the corresponding paper.

PDB-101 stands for Protein Data Bank entry-level (101). It offers free-to-use visualizations of biomolecular structures and their functions.

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that works to enable sharing of different types of creative works that normally would be copyrighted by default. It also offers a search engine for searching free-to-use images.

Unsplash offers a selection of generic photographs that the authors have chosen to make freely available to everyone. Even attribution is not mandatory, but of course, the authors will appreciate it. The photographs might come in handy in presentations, for example, to show a real-world example of a problem that you are solving with your research.

Pexels offers a selection of free videos and generic photographs that can be useful for your scientific illustrations and scientific videos. I especially like the video section since searching with the appropriate keywords allowed me to find scenes from research life.

Tools without knowledge are of no use

Regardless of the tool you choose, it will only serve you if you really learn to use it. Even the most expensive software will be of little help if you have only a vague idea about its functionality.

And even if you do know the ins and outs of the software you want to use, you also need to be familiar with the basic principles of visual design. Otherwise, the result is likely not going to impress anyone.

I wrote the book “ Research Data Visualization and Scientific Graphics ” with a busy scientist in mind. It will show you step-by-step instructions for how to create figures for papers, presentations, and research proposals alike. To make sure you can efficiently apply tips, the book includes a cheat sheet with a list of graphical features that you can refer to whenever creating a new graphic, diagram, or illustration.

Even if you would like to outsource the task of creating your illustration, it will be useful to know the basics. Otherwise, conversations with the freelancers can turn out very one-sided (and not in your favor).

Outsourcing a scientific illustration

There is no shame in admitting that you just don’t have the skills to create the graphic that you would like to. And you don’t care or have enough time to learn it. Thankfully with the advance of freelancing platforms, it is quite easy to find someone who can do the job for you without breaking the bank.

Fiverr is a platform where you can find freelancers for many types of work, including the creation of illustrations. Every freelancer has a rating, so make sure to check their profile before handing out what is called a “gig”. https://www.fiverr.com/

Upwork is similar to Fiverr, except that you will create a description of the job first. Then the freelancers will place bids on it. Similar to Fiverr, check the rating of the people who are offering to do the work and don’t fall for the cheapest offer. To start you will have to create a profile: https://www.upwork.com/

Ideas for inspiration

In the end, let me share some very cool platforms that can serve as an inspiration for creating your own scientific illustrations.

Wehi-TV offers a stunning library of biomedical animations, GIFs, and images. https://www.wehi.edu.au/wehi-tv

Roche has created guided visualizations showing metabolic reactions as well as cellular and molecular processes. http://biochemical-pathways.com/

A practical guide for creating scientific illustrations

Informative scientific visualizations and clear graphics draw citations to papers, make presentations memorable, and encourage reviewers to approve research proposals. The book “ Research Data Visualization and Scientific Graphics ” will show you how to make it happen.

Hi! My name is Martins Zaumanis and I am obsessed with communicating science visually. But I know you are not, so I wrote a book that will show you eleven principles that you can use for turning your ideas into clear meaningful diagrams, and memorable scientific visualizations, even if you don’t possess the artistic gene. The book also holds a step-by-step guide for turning research data into meaningful charts. Go to Amazon to read a preview.

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Showing figures from a paper in presentation

I'm giving a talk summarizing someone else's paper and I'd like to show some figures from their paper during my presentation. It's an informal talk to fellow students and a few professors at my school. Would it okay to just have a PDF of their paper up on the screen showing the figures needed? Should I obtain permission before I do this?

• presentation

• 1 Do you mean a published paper, as in a journal? If so then yeah there's absolutely no problem showing it directly. If you want to pull figures from it and put them in your talk, just make it clear where they're from. –  zeldredge Commented Feb 26, 2015 at 15:14
• I've personally seen this done in talks all the time, just make sure you leave a footnote referencing the work. –  JNS Commented Feb 26, 2015 at 15:41

2 Answers 2

In my field, mathematical physics, I've seen many presentations with figures from papers, and it's perfectly acceptable to do so providing you reference the work either at the end on a separate slide or as a footnote.

If the figure does not consist of data collected by the authors, but rather, for example, the graph of a function, then you could of course plot it yourself and include your own figure. There would be no need for citation.

• "There would be no need for citation" - Except if you need to cite the function itself :-) Nice answer! –  darthbith Commented Feb 26, 2015 at 19:42
• @darthbith Yes, I considered that, but generally functions themselves aren't cited. Rather, if there is a result about a particular function, then that may merit citation. –  JNS Commented Feb 26, 2015 at 20:03

The thesis writing guide of Tampere University of Technology (Thesis Writing Guide at Tampere University of Technology, p. 35. March 2014.) says the following about using figures from other sources in your thesis. As the theses are published, I believe the following applies also to presentations:

If a table or figure is cited from another volume [i.e. published paper], the in-text citation is placed in the caption or the heading of the table. The full reference is listed at the end of your thesis.

If you edit a figure or table taken from another source, for example, to ensure that colours, terms and notations match the rest of your thesis, you add ”adapted from [15]” to the citation.

These recommendations are legal at least in Finland. Even though we have quite similar copyright system with the other western countries, your local system might differ.

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