Effective use of figures and tables is such an important skill to learn for preparing scientific papers that will have an impact. Journals love them, but not too much. The key is to get the balance right.
A few, clear figures that demonstrate key results that would be painful to describe in words. Use colour only if absolutely necessary; colour is more expensive to print and many of your readers will struggle to tell colours apart. Spend some time crafting a succinct but descriptive figure caption. A reader should be able to understand what your figure means without having to refer to the text in the paper. Make sure you cite the figure in your manuscript text, but don’t rewrite the figure caption there. Simply describe the result supported by the figure reference.
My PhD supervisor told me once that using a table in a presentation shows that you don’t know what you are talking about. While tables might be a Powerpoint™ sin, they have an important place in a scientific manuscript. Particularly if you have quantitative data that you want current and future scientists to be able to use, put the data in a table. Follow the journal’s table formatting guidelines. Again, a clear and descriptive caption is important, but you don’t need to repeat the caption in your text. If you want to include a table, but it is too long or complex for the journal, consider including it as supplementary material.
You’d be surprised to know how many people will read your paper by skimming the abstract and flipping to your figures and tables. If they find what they are looking for there, they will read, and cite your paper. This is what you are after. So, take some time to carefully craft effective figures and tables. You won’t regret it.
John @ ProofreadCanada