Effective use of tables and figures

  Effective use of

tables and figures

Reza Pulungan

  

Klinik Penulisan Karya Ilmiah Internasional

Yogyakarta, 30 Juli 2018

Outline

• Scientific papers
• General guidelines
• Tables
• Figures
• Mistakes and tips

  

Scientific papers

• To get ideas across as clearly, accurately and succinctly as possible to the reader.

• Not only simply present a chronological account of the

  research work.
• Must convince their audience that the research presented is important, valid, and relevant.

  for the work and Must emphasise both the 

• motivation

  outcome

   of it, and they must include just enough the 

  evidence to establish the validity of this outcome.

General guidelines

  The main text should:

  a. tell the reader when to look at a table or figure;

  b. introduce the contents of the table or figure;

  c. point out any key features or trends; d. draw a conclusion from the table or figure.

  General guidelines nclusion from the table or figure which answers the “So what?” question. (Schematics of experimental apparatus are one exception to this guideline.)

  Topic sentence to introduce the topic of the paragraph.

Example 1

  “As Table 1 shows, …” would rarely be a useful topic sentence.

  One measure of social disadvantage is relative access to primary health care. As Table 1/Fig. 1 shows, in (a) comparison to capital city residents, Woop Woop’s

  (b) and (c). Note that the important main residents have significantly lower per capita access feature is only described qualitatively, as text to both GPs and pharmacists. This suggests that to given any actual numbers here would governments should look at ways of encouraging more be redundant and potentially confusing to the reader. doctors and pharmacists to move to rural areas.

  (d) x x x “As Table 1 shows, …” would

  comparison to capital city residents, Woop Woop’s

  General guidelines x

Table vs Figure

  x Table 1. Access to primary health care providers in rural Woop Woop is x

  significantly lower than in capital cities.* Woop Woop Capital City Average

  GPs per 100,000 75.6 103.4 Pharmacists per 100,000

  52.0

  62.5

  x x * Source: AIHW (1996). x x

• Tables are more precise but can take more

  Figure 1. Access to primary health care providers x work from the reader to interpret. Graphs in rural Woop Woop is significantly lower than in and charts are less precise but are generally capital cities (AIHW, 1996). x x Note that when referencing the source, “adapted much easier to interpret qualitatively. from” would only be used if you have changed the x x

  Tables present numbers for comparison with include “Bar chart of ...” as that would be redundant. It can take x x other numbers or summarise or define ns which don’t concepts, terms, or other details of a study. include redundant “Graph of / Bar chart of” etc. x Note that when referencing the source, “adapted

• x

  Graphs reveal trends or delineate selected from” would only be used if you have changed the on the writer’s objectives and the reader’s perceived needs. features.

  x

  x include “Bar chart of ...” as that would be redundant. It can take General guidelines

  nclusion from the table or figure which answers the “So what?” question. (Schematics Table 1. Access to primary health care providers in rural Woop Woop is

Caption

  significantly lower than in capital cities.* Woop Woop Capital City Average

  GPs per 100,000 75.6 103.4 Pharmacists per 100,000

  52.0

  62.5 * Source: AIHW (1996). comparison to capital city residents, Woop Woop’s

  “As Table 1 shows, …” would x x x x x comparison to capital city residents, Woop Woop’s x x x

  Figure 1. Access to primary health care providers in rural Woop Woop is significantly lower than in capital cities (AIHW, 1996). x x x x Note that when referencing the source, “adapted from” would only be used if you have changed the x M. Cargill & P. O’Connor (2009), Writing Scientific Research Articles: Strategy and Steps, pp.

  25-26, argue that “ story telling ” captions and titles are more communicative than simply descriptive titles. Compare the caption in with: “Rural-city comparison of access to primary health care providers.” If the table or figure is not your creation, don’t forget to cite it.

  Use “adapted from” if you change the original in some way.

  General guidelines

Independent from the text

• Make your tables and figures as independent of the main text as much as you can without making them excessively wordy.
• Spell out abbreviations at first mention in tables or figures, even if they have already been 
 defined in the text.

  they are taking a “short cut” or _{Table 2. st}

• – “Student

  The number of 1 year engineering students (N = 108) providing the indicated answer to the question of the units of each term in the differential equation _{2 RNFL} dD dt 100 .

  01 D

  shows that very few realise that the units of the terms in a = 108).” – differential equation need to be homogeneous. _{2 S}

  mg/hr* mg mg no units other no answer _{RNFL loss T N}

  dD/dt

  84 -

  6

  2

  3

  13 100 ₂

  10

  74

  6

  6 12 - _I

• 0.01D 14 -

  35

  26

  13

  20 _{ONH RNFL Blood vessels}

  M. Cargill & P. O’Connor (2009), Figure 1. Overview of the retinal structure in retinal fundus im- argue that “story telling” captions and titles are more communicative than age of the right eye and of the sector partition. RNFL, titles. Compare the title / caption in Example 1 with: “Rural retinal nerve fiber layer; ONH, optic nerve head. health care providers.”

  

General guidelines

Referencing

• As shown in Table 3, … As can be seen in Fig. 2, … As indicated in Tables 3-5, …
• The result of X was Y, as shown in Fig. 3.
• Regarding the question of …, data in Table 5 shows that …
• The result of the experiments is given in Table 9. The block diagram of the proposed method is depicted in Fig. 4.
• As hypothesised, it was found that Group A performed

  significantly better on the test than Group B (Table 7). OR ...

  (see Table 7). OR ... (cf. Table 7).

Tables

• Are used for reporting extensive numerical data in an organised manner.
• Present numbers for comparison with other numbers or summarise or define concepts, terms, or other details of a study.
• Numbered in the ordered they are referenced to in the text.
• Caption is usually above the table.
• Use boldface type, italic type, or underlining to highlight.

• Pay attention to alignment in each column.

  90.91 11 100

  93.10

  86.67

  90.91 T

  10

  96.00

  84.21

  93.55

  93.18

  95.45

  12

  96.77

  76.92

  90.90 Overall

  96.26

  89.06

  09

  92.59

  94.52 RNFL, retinal nerve fiber layer.

  05 97.62 100

  Tables Table 1. Performance of the proposed RNFL detection method Sector Sub-sector Sensitivity (%) Specificity (%) Accuracy (%)

  I

  01 97.62 100

  97.73

  02 93.02 100

  93.18 03 100 100 100 S 04 100 100 100

  97.73

  94.12

  06 95.24 100

  95.45 N

  07

  90.91

  83.33

  88.89

  08

• Avoid using too many vertical li

Figures

• Often the best means of presenting scientific data.
• Graphs, maps, diagrams, photos, illustration.
• Reveal trends or delineate selected features.
• Numbered in the ordered they are referenced to in the text.
• Use vector-based or high-resolution figures.
• Caption is usually below of the table.

  Figures ^{A Forming the features Testing B}

• Avoid using “Bar chart of …”,

  _{Sample images with labels}

  _{Retinal fundus image Feature extraction}
_I “Diagram of …” as that would
• _{+ Class ROI detection localization ONH grayscale image Converting to S} be redundant. It can take a

  _{grayscale image}

  _{Converting to}

  _{ONH sub-sectors Forming the N} conscious effort to write
_{segmentation Forming the T} captions which don’t include

_{Feature extraction}

_{Extraction of patches C} them.

_{Saving the features}

_{Feature selection}

_{RNFL: Yes/No (loss) Classification selected features}

  Figure 2. Stage diagram of the proposed retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) detection method. ROI, region of interest; ONH, optic nerve head. charts and the size and appearance of letters and numbers should be consistent within a paper. _{04 05 06 04 05 06}

• The style of the graphs and
• Every line in a figure should
₁₀

₀₁

_{02 03 09 10 01 02 03 09} ^{11 12 07 08 12 11 07 08} have meaning and purpose.

  Figure 7. Examples of erroneous re- tinal nerve fiber layer de- tection results obtained by

  Use appropriate axis scale _{GT: 1-1-1-1-1-1- -0-0-1-1-1 1 GT: 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-0-0-1- -1} false negative and (B) false _{PM: 1-1-1-1-1-1- -0-0-1-1-1 PM: 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-0-0-1- -1 1} positive. GT, ground truth; A B and legend.

• the proposed method: (A)

  PM, proposed method.

Mistakes and tips

• M: Not integrating the table or figure into the text.
• M: Including irrelevant or unnecessary figures or tables.
• M: Repeating in the text, statistics that can be found in a table.
• T: Consolidate similar information into one table to let the reader compare easily so that the reader does not have to search for related information.
• T: If a table has only a few rows and columns, try stating the findings in a few sentences. Information in small tables can often be presented better in the text.

• T: Data presented in tables should not be duplicated in graphs, and vice

  versa.

  “ rror bars”

Mistakes and tips

  

T: Use error bars

Example 5

  600 Without error bars, there is no way to judge the

  550 significance of the differences in the means.

  500 450 400 350

  QLD Avge Aust. Avge Figure 2. NAPLAN Grade 5 reading results for 2009 (error bars are standard deviations). Mistakes and tips T: Showing discrete points Discrete points should not be connected with a line.

  Mistakes and tips T: Use correct axis

References

• Doumont, J., ed. English Communication for Scientists. Cambridge, MA: NPG Education, 2010. (available at: https://www.nature.com/scitable/ebooks/english- communication-for-scientists-14053993/contents)
• ASA-CSSA-SSSA, Publications Handbook & Style Manual, 2018.
• The Learning Hub, Student Services, The University of Queensland.

  Thank you.