How to Cite Tables and Figures in an Article?
Most of the scientific articles published each year contain tables, figures, diagrams, images, or maps. Many journals have difficult guidelines for the inclusion of such items in an article.
It is very important to know how to draw tables and the quality of the images used is very significant. So the researcher should carefully select them. In this article, we will describe how to insert tables and images in the article.
Through images and tables, the researcher is able to easily transfer information that is difficult to describe through text. Most of the readers only pay attention to visual items such as figures and graphs and may not even read the text of the article. Thus, make sure that the displayed items are independent of the text and clearly convey the important results of the research.
The displayed items are important for attracting the audience. Well-designed and -illustrated items make the audience interested and convince them to spend more time on such items. Finally, they motivate the reader to read the whole article.
The information displayed in the form of quality images and tables gives your article a professional look. Readers usually think that a professional-looking article is more scientifically rewarding. So, readers are more likely to trust and discuss the results. You should answer the following questions when you decide which results to include in the figures and tables:
- Readers prefer to see which kind of data is in figures or tables.
- Are the images complementary to the text or do they repeat the same data as the text?
- Are data, such as statistics or P values, which can easily be presented inside the text, included in the tables?
1. Tables
Drawing tables is an effective and concise way of presenting large amounts of data. You need to design them carefully so that your results can be clearly described to busy researchers who do not have time to read the whole article.
Well-designed tables have the following features:
- A short and clear caption
- Categorization of the data to achieve greater transparency
- Enough space between the columns and rows
- Provision of measurement units
· Legible font type and size
2. Images
A researcher uses images to illustrate:
- Figure
- Graph Data
- Map
- Drawing
Like tables, images should have a clear and short caption.3. Figures
The reader visualizes the information you present through figures in your article. Most of the time it is not possible to transfer what you mean through words. With the help of figures, the required accuracy for a scientific paper is realized. For example, just mentioning that the “surface is nanometer-sized” is not enough. In this case, it is best to show this in the form of a microscopic image. For figures, make sure that they have the following characteristics:
- Include a graduated line
- Name the most important items
- Explain the meaning of different colors and symbols
3. Graphs
Graphs convey a large amount of data. Their goal often is to show a relationship between two or more items statistically. Do not forget that there should be enough space for describing the relationship between a set of data.
For data charts, make sure to:
- Name all the axes of the graphs
- Specify a unit for all the quantities
- Name all the curves and data
- Use a legible font size
4. Maps
Maps help us to show the location where field surveys were conducted. Good maps indicate how location has affected your study. Besides, they give other researchers the opportunity to reproduce your work by finding places with similar features.
For maps, you need to make sure:
- They have latitude and longitude
- They have a graduated axis
- Important items are named
- They must have a caption
5. Schematic Drawings
Drawings help identify key parts of systems or processes. In drawings, you only display important items, because adding trivial items makes them disordered. Drawings only contain designs that the author chooses and are more flexible than shapes. When taking pictures is not possible, drawings are a great choice.
For schemes, you must consider the following:
- Name the most important items
- Provide supplementary explanations in the caption and the text
- Provide a complete guide for tables and images
- Provide additional notes on tables and illustrations
Tips on Displaying Images
Make sure to check out the way images are displayed, both in print and online. For online publishing, 72 ppi resolution and for print 100 ppi resolution are recommended. When saving the file, adjust the resolution of the images with the application you are using.
Colors are available in two modes, including RGB which consists of red, green, and blue as well as CMYK which consists of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. Most microscopes record images using the RGB model, but the CMYK model is the standard used for printing. So you need to make sure the images are displayed properly in this format.
Avoid Manipulating Results
You should never make changes to images to change or improve your results. To avoid unwanted manipulation of images, you need to slightly process them before submitting the article to the journal. Images submitted to the journal must be raw images.
Adjusting the brightness or contrast of images, for example in a fluorescence microscope, is only acceptable if applied to all images, including the image of control samples.
Cropping is acceptable if it increases the transparency or accuracy of the provided information. But it should not destroy or interfere with essential information. For example, in the case of gel electrophoresis, marker-related information should not be destroyed by cropping.
You should list all the software you used to process the images.
Tip: Journal reviewers may need you to submit raw images, files, and metadata for review; thus, you must save and keep all of them.
When drafting your manuscript, there may be information that needed to be in a figure or table. The first thing that you should do is to decide which suits your purpose better. Tables are suitable for data having lots of variables or categories or values that have the same pattern. Figures are proper for showing comparisons between groups in columns or associations in regression plots. Choosing one over the other can depend on space and the amount of data that you intend to present. Figures allow for the visual presentation of data, whereas tables allow space for more detail.
Do not repeat information in your text and tables or figures. It is not a good idea to give a list of numbers in the text while bringing the same list in the subsequent table. Likewise, you don’t need to visualize the information that is presented in a table through a figure and vice versa. If your table or figure is simple containing two or three columns and rows, it is better to summarize your information in a few sentences rather than using a table or figure.
After presenting your data in a table or figure, you have to provide the reader with the context of the data. The guide which gives short textual information to the reader in interpreting what they see is called “legend”.
Figure legends
Figure legends are typically longer than table legends. The first sentence usually gives an overview of what is in the figure. For example,
“Figure 1. Flowchart of patient selection.”
After the title, you should give the reader enough background to understand what they see in the figure. An example of a complete legend is like this:
“Figure 1. Flowchart of patient selection. Inclusion criteria were age over 18 and no history of asthma. Patients were excluded if they had asthma, were using an inhaler, or were taking oral steroids.”
In cases where a figure has multiple parts or panels, it is better to label each with a letter: A, B, C, etc. in lowercase or upper-head letters depending on the journal’s guidelines. You can examine the last published papers of your target journal to know about this matter.
If you have panel labels, you should incorporate the letters and panels into a single file. You should not add them to Word or other document files as extra images or text boxes on top of your existing figure image. In the legend, you should explain each panel that you label and give the reader a hint of what it shows. For example, with a fictional figure with two panels, A and B:
“Figure 2. The effects of the roll before and after animals were fed. (A) Risolol effects before feeding. Animals showed no changes in heart rate. (B) Risolol effects after feeding. Heart rate went up 10-fold, on average.”
A different way of providing that information would be like this:
“Figure 2. The effects of the risolol before (A) and after (B) animals were fed. Animals showed no changes in heart rate before feeding, but the rate increased 10-fold on average after feeding.”
What matters most is telling the reader what the figure shows, on the whole. (“Effects of risolol on heart rate” or a statement, “Risolol affects heart rate after feeding”). In order to avoid cluttering up the image, we suggest the placement of the information such as the P value in the figure legend in the figure itself.
Table Legend
Table legends, otherwise called “titles” differ from figure legends. They usually contain only a single phrase or sentence. For instance:
“Table 1. Patient characteristics.”
If you intend to provide more detail about the content of the table, you should place them in the footnote of the table placed after the table. In the footnote, define terms that you abbreviate in the table, indicate the meaning of any superscript symbols you use, and any other notes that help the reader understand what the table shows. These notes can contain information about comparisons with different numbers of participants or a methodological difference between comparisons in the table.
The difference between table and legend
Normally a figure legend contains more detail and is placed above or below the figure as a single paragraph. Journals usually ask authors to put all figure legends on a single page following the reference list and upload the files of images separately.
Table legends are usually short and located at the end of the manuscript following the figure legend page, with one table on a page.
Some journals let authors place figures, tables, and legends close to where they are mentioned in the text. By consulting journal guidelines entitles “Instruction for authors”, “Author information”, “Journal guidelines”, or “Submission information” you will know the requirements of your target journal.
Do not remember to cite in the text all figures and tables that you use in your paper. You also should number the figures and tables in the order that they appear in the text.
Citing figures and tables in the text
Journals are different in the way they ask these citations to look. In some journals, the figure appears as abbreviated (e.g., Fig. 1), but in others, they do not (e.g., Figure 1). The same applies to the use of panel labels in an in-text citation (e.g., Fig. 1A, Figure 1A, Fig. 1(a), etc.). looking at a newly published paper in your target journal is a good way of finding this out.
The abbreviated form of the word “table” is never used in the in-text citation. Journals usually ask authors not to produce tables that have different parts (e.g., a, b, c). If you have a table that you’ve broken into, e.g., Table 1a and Table 1b, you should either merge it into a single table 1 or break it into two tables, e.g., Table 1 and Table 2.
Journals have different approaches regarding supplementary material having tables and figures. Examples include Figure S1, Supplementary Figure 1, Supplementary Fig. 1, Table S1, or Supplementary Table 1. Elements occurring only in the supplementary material must be cited in the main text and numbered in the order that they appeared in the text.