Figures & tables in Result section

Illustration items: a picture tells a thousand words

 - By a professor in Harvard University

A good picture is worthy of a thousand words!

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- Only 3 required photos are definitely enough to validate your disobeying

red traffic lights.
- (No fewer, no more) 3
 Example figures in scientific papers

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 Principles for preparing figures

What you should know

1. A paper’s key findings should be presented in tables and figures;
2. Importantly, they must be self-explanatory- ‘Stand alone’ legends
3. It is highly recommended to design the layout of tables and
figures carefully; a clear and suitable layout emphasizes the
credibility of the study results;
4. Both tables and figures should have a clear relation with
the text of the paper.
5. When assembling a paper for submission, it is usual to insert each
table and figure on a new page after the reference list.
6. Specific file format (e.g., TIFF, JPEG, or PNG) – checking the target
journal

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The figure below, taken from a published paper, contains many of
the elements of a successful display .

From “The Journal of Clinical Investigation” 7

Tables are a great way to present large amounts of necessary data with
minimal description required.

From “The Journal of Clinical Investigation” 8

- An example - figures

 Which one is the best for a paper? any differences? 9

- An example - figures

Problems
-The axes have no labels.
-The plot does not use space well.
- The used data in the scatter plot are too much.

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Problems
-The axes have very strange ranges
-The bottom axis uses scientific notation for numbers less than 1,000, which are all
within one order of magnitude. This make the scale hard to read, and consequently
hard to interpret.
- The text is too small
- The font choice is inconsistent

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The plot is an author or reviewer would be satisfied with
- The scales and labels are easy to read.
- Distractions like inconsistent fonts and strange scale ranges are eliminated
- high-contrast (easy to see) colors are used

The figure is attractive.

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- The Caption/legend of figures

- It is very important to have “stand alone” figures. This requires a

caption that
1. Explains what is in the figure
2. Tells the reader how to interpret the figure
3. Tells the reader why the figure is included in the paper

Stand alone

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- New caption

Fig. 3 Microscope images showing arsenic triselenide microspheres fabricated

using the three-step process. The lack of distortions in the reflected light suggests
that these microspheres have surfaces of high optical quality. The microspheres
have low fiber-axis eccentricity (e = 0.086), which will ensure they will behave as
spherical resonators when coupled to a waveguide perpendicular to this axis. The
process can be used to fabricate a wide range of microsphere sizes: (a) 55 µm, (b)
270 µm, and (c) 384 µm.

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 Adjust the word program ppi
(pixel per inch)

File->option->advanced-> image
size and Quality-> …ppi
Do not compress images in file

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Use Origin Pro instead of Excel

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 Use Adobe Photoshop for labeling

• Use Adobe Photoshop instead of paint

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