It's important to lay out tables and figures correctly, with clear labels, titles, legends and / or captions. Figures can include graphs, photographs, drawings or maps (anything visual that isn't a table.)
Top tips!
- Figures and tables should be self sufficient - if they are read independently the reader should understand it from the represented data and accompanying legend or caption
- They should be numbered in separate series eg. Figure 1, Figure 2, Table 1, Table 2 etc and numbered in the order in which you refer to them
Tables
- Tables should have a title that describes the contents of the table
- If required, clarifying information can be added in a footnote (underneath your table)
- Contents of a table should be concise
Figures / graphs
- Should have a legend underneath with the Figure number and a description / caption of the data shown
- Use space efficiently in graphs
Abbreviations
- Where you are abbreviating something, if it is something that is not in common science use, define the abbreviation once and after that use the abbreviation only.
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