aerj-tables-figures

Tables & Figures (aerj-tables-figures)

In AERJ, a reader should grasp each exhibit without hunting through the text, and every exhibit must follow APA 7th-edition table/figure conventions. Because review is masked, exhibits must carry no identifying clues (institution names, data-source giveaways in titles).

When to trigger

• Designing tables/figures or revising them after analysis
• A reviewer found an exhibit unreadable, mislabeled, or non-APA
• Preparing exhibits for a masked submission (no identifying content)
• Deciding what belongs in the body vs an appendix

Principles

1. Self-contained. Title states what the exhibit shows; notes define every abbreviation, the sample/N, the units, and significance/probability conventions. A reader should not need the text.
2. APA 7th-edition format. Table number + italic title; horizontal rules only (no vertical rules); figure number + title; a general note, then specific notes, then probability notes.
3. Report estimates with uncertainty. Coefficients with SEs/CIs; for multilevel models, label levels and random effects; mark the estimand, not just stars.
4. Figures earn their place. Use a figure when it shows something a table cannot (trajectories, interactions, distributions, RD/event-study, joint displays for mixed methods). Otherwise use a table.
5. Accessibility. Colorblind-safe palettes; legible in grayscale; readable at print size; vector output for line art.
6. Qualitative exhibits. Coding trees, thematic maps, and evidence tables (theme → exemplar quotation) are legitimate exhibits — anonymize participants and sites.
7. Match the package. Exhibit numbers/values must match the analysis output and the deposited materials (see aerj-transparency-and-data-policy).

Anti-patterns

• Tables readable only with the surrounding paragraph
• Vertical rules, inconsistent decimals, undefined abbreviations (non-APA)
• Stars without effect sizes or intervals; no N or units
• Rainbow palettes that fail in grayscale or for colorblind readers
• Identifying clues in titles/notes that break masking
• Exhibit values that drift from the replication package

What AERJ exhibit referees check

Reviewers across AERJ's policy/institutional, teaching/learning, development, and cross-cutting lenses read exhibits before they read prose, so an unreadable exhibit damages the paper before the argument is even heard. Use this as a pre-submission exhibit triage.

Exhibit type	What an AERJ referee expects to see	Desk-screen / first-round red flag
Multilevel results table	Level-1 and level-2 coefficients separated, random-effect variances, ICC, N at each level	One undifferentiated column that hides the nesting
Growth-model table	Intercept/slope means, variance components, time coding stated	Trajectories implied but no variance components reported
Quasi-experimental figure	Event-study or RD plot with bandwidth, pre-trend, confidence band	A bare bar chart of means with no uncertainty
Qualitative evidence table	Theme → operational definition → exemplar excerpt → source (anonymized)	A wall of quotations with no analytic column
Mixed-methods joint display	Quant result and qual finding side by side with a meta-inference column	Two stacked exhibits that never meet

Worked exhibit vignette (illustrative)

Take an AERJ study of a middle-school reading-comprehension intervention in 40 schools. The core table reports a treatment coefficient of 0.18 SD (95% CI [0.04, 0.32]), a school-level ICC of 0.14, and N = 3,200 students in 40 schools (all numbers illustrative). A strong AERJ exhibit puts the estimate, the interval, the ICC, and both N levels in one self-contained note; a weak one prints "b = 0.18, p < .05" and forces the reader into the methods section to learn the sample is clustered. The companion joint display pairs that 0.18 SD estimate with the qualitative finding that teachers in higher-gain schools re-allocated time to discussion — the meta-inference column is what earns the figure its place.

Referee pushback and the venue fix

• "I cannot tell which estimates are between- vs within-school." → Split the table by level and label random effects; report the ICC explicitly.
• "The figure is unreadable in the printed (grayscale) issue." → Move from color-coded lines to distinguishable markers/linetypes; SAGE print remains a constraint.
• "This exhibit could identify the district." → Strip site-revealing titles and notes; masked review requires anonymized exhibits, not just an anonymized text body.

Output format

【Exhibit】table / figure — one-line purpose
【Self-contained?】title + notes define N, units, abbreviations, significance [Y/N]
【APA 7th format】[Y/N]
【Uncertainty shown】SE/CI + estimand labeled [Y/N]
【Accessible】colorblind-safe + grayscale-legible [Y/N]
【Masked】no identifying clues [Y/N]
【Next】aerj-writing-style

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — plotting/exhibit tooling and APA table helpers
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — APA style and masked-review requirements