The importance of figures
Results are the driving force of publication and are usually (and best) presented in Figures!
A familiar phrase to us all is ‘A picture is worth 1000 words’- humans are very visual! Our eyes are drawn to figures, pictures and diagrams and these often greatly assist understanding.
Figures and diagrams are therefore an incredibly useful tool within scientific writing: endeavour to use figures and tables in place of extensive text as an efficient way to present your results.
As scientists, when we see an interesting publication, we rarely read the text from beginning to end! The first thing we do is to skip to the key results in the form of figures.
This is exactly what people will do with your paper - it is therefore highly important that these figures operate as standalone entities with appropriate legends, scales and captions: they are critical
to the success of your paper!
Begin the writing process by compiling the key results in Figures and write around these. It is worth spending time of these figures at the beginning
of the writing process, ensuring they meet the journal requirements from the start helps avoid time-wasting in the long-run.
Types of figures
Generally, photographs, graphs and simulations as well as tables are used in scientific journals. Whatever the type of figure used, it is important to consult the Guide to Authors
on specifications of such figures before you spend too much time compiling them. These guidelines generally have a section of preparing graphics, which will specify the:
Photographs
Photographs of scientific set-ups, individual components or samples are a very useful addition to your manuscript, providing the reader an immediate insight and visualisation of your work.
Use a high quality camera for these images, which should look of professional quality! Try to use a plain background and spend time fiddling with lighting to ensure the image is as clear as possible.
Do not forget scale markers which can be added to the image in post-processing. If symbols are used in the image and text, ensure clarity of legibility and consistency to the text!
Graphs and plots
Graphs of key results are a very useful way of presenting otherwise complicated data in a simple and understandable manner. Try to ensure that your plots are as clear as possible by:
- Keeping plots un-crowded: only present key results.
- Use different line-styles (and possibly colour) to clarify meaning of data to the reader. Consider legibility in greyscale for the reader.
- Ensure line-widths and text complies with minimum point-width as specified in the Guide to Authors. This includes label size on the axis!
Tables
Tables can be useful if they are used in an appropriate way. Avoid long and boring tables with extensive data which are too lengthy or of limited interest to the reader.
If these longer tables are relevant, consider putting the full version in supplementary material and include only the b>key results within the text.
Editing figures
When editing figures with the reader in mind, it is appropriate to adjust the brightness, contrast, colour balance. However, it is not appropriate
to move, remove, introduce, obscure or enhance items/data within your figure. This can also be detected by Journals.
A final note on captions
Finally, do not neglect your figure captions!
They are just as important as the rest of the body of text, but can be easily neglected. Ensure that figure captions fully describe the figure in a stand-alone manner.
This can require captions to be quite extensive at times, however, if information is provided within a figure caption it is not necessary to repeat the information again within the text.