ajs-tables-figures

Tables & Figures (ajs-tables-figures)

AJS has specific house conventions for exhibits, and it now requires alt text for every figure at submission. Get the mechanics right so the exhibits read cleanly under double-blind review and pass straight into production. Verify current formatting against the AJS Manuscript Preparation pages and Formatting PDF before submission.

When to trigger

• Building or revising tables and figures for an AJS submission
• Preparing the post-text exhibit sections and appendix tables
• Writing alt text and captions
• A reader said an exhibit was unreadable, mislabeled, or non-self-contained

AJS exhibit conventions (verify on the live prep pages / PDF)

• Numbering: number tables/figures consecutively as they appear in the text. AJS strongly prefers numbering discrete items separately (table 1, table 2, table 3 …) rather than grouping several panels under one number.
• Appendix exhibits: number as table A1, A2 … / table B1, B2 … (lettered by appendix).
• Placement: notes, references, tables, figures, and appendices appear in separate sections following the text, in that order — not embedded inline.
• Alt text (required): provide alternative text for every figure, image, or inline graphic, included with the figure captions at the time of submission.
• Self-contained: each exhibit readable on its own — units, N, source, and what varies stated in title/notes.

Make exhibits do theoretical work

• Lead with the exhibit that carries the main claim; do not bury it among robustness tables.
• Prefer figures that show a mechanism or pattern (marginal effects, event-study, sequence, network structure) over dense coefficient dumps where a plot would communicate better.
• Colorblind-safe, legible in grayscale; vector output (PDF/EPS) for print.

Referee/production conformance check (AJS-specific)

Slip referees and production catch	AJS-specific fix
Panels grouped under one number	discrete, consecutive: table 1, 2, 3
Appendix table continues the main sequence	letter it: table A1/B1
Exhibit embedded inline	move to the separate post-text sections
Perfunctory or missing alt text	one descriptive line per figure, with captions
Exhibit unreadable without the body	state units, N, source in title/notes

Calibration: exhibits as argument, not decoration (hedged)

Craft heuristics fitting AJS's culture, not graded rules; confirm specifics against the journal's current submission guidelines. Because AJS rewards a carefully built argument, the lead exhibit should carry the theoretical claim, not merely display a model — a figure that makes a mechanism visible (a sequence plot, a network diagram, marginal effects rather than a coefficient dump) does more work than a wall of stars, and pacing the long-form article means placing the claim-bearing exhibit early. Illustrative: a regime-transitions paper buries its headline pattern in table 6; the author promotes it to a lead event-sequence figure, renumbers the rest discretely (tables 1–7), moves diagnostics to a lettered appendix (A1–A3), and gives every figure descriptive alt text.

Anti-patterns

• Grouping panels under one number when AJS wants discrete numbering
• Embedding tables/figures inline instead of in the post-text sections
• Missing or perfunctory alt text (now required at submission)
• Exhibits that need the body text to be intelligible (no units, no N, no source)
• A wall of stars where a single figure would carry the argument, or burying the claim-bearing exhibit among robustness tables

Exhibit pass for American Journal of Sociology

Treat this skill as an executable review pass, not a prose hint. First lock the social process, data leverage, causal or interpretive warrant, and theoretical payoff; then judge whether the current manuscript answers the venue's real reader: sociology reviewers who value deep theory, durable empirical leverage, and careful social-mechanism claims.

• Do the pass: For every table or figure, state the estimand or object, sample or case base, uncertainty display, and one sentence the exhibit proves for the venue audience.
• Return a ledger: give claim / evidence / risk / manuscript location rows, so the next agent can edit rather than rediscover the issue.
• Sibling guard: compare against ASR for broader empirical sociology, Social Forces for wider substantive range, Demography for population mechanisms; if a sibling owns the contribution, recommend re-routing before polishing format.
• Stop condition: do not give submission-ready advice until the pack's resources/official-source-map.md has been checked for volatile rules and the manuscript has one concrete fix for the largest venue-specific risk.

Output format

【Main exhibit】the one carrying the central claim (lead with it)
【Numbering】discrete + consecutive? appendix as A1/B1? [Y/N]
【Placement】in separate post-text sections (notes/refs/tables/figures/appendices)? [Y/N]
【Alt text】present for every figure, with captions? [Y/N]
【Self-contained】units / N / source / accessible? [Y/N]
【Next】ajs-writing-style

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — plotting and exhibit tooling
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — AJS exhibit numbering, post-text sections, and alt-text requirement