bjps-tables-figures

Tables & Figures (bjps-tables-figures)

Exhibits are where an expert reviewer checks whether the result is real. At BJPS they must also fit Cambridge's physical limits — tables within roughly 190 × 120 mm, figures within roughly 200 × 133 mm at ≥ 300 dpi (待核实 exact current figures) — and they count against the word budget, so every exhibit must pull its weight.

When to trigger

• Designing the main results table/figure or a key descriptive exhibit
• Deciding what belongs in the article vs. the online appendix
• A reviewer found an exhibit unclear, mislabeled, or non-self-contained
• Trimming to the word cap by moving exhibits to the appendix

Principles

1. Self-contained. A reader should understand each exhibit from its title, axis/column labels, and note alone — without hunting through the text. State units, sample, N, and what the estimate is.
2. Figures over dense tables for effects. Coefficient/forest plots, marginal-effects and predicted-probability plots, event-study and RD plots communicate magnitude and uncertainty better than a wall of coefficients. Show intervals.
3. Accessible. Colourblind-safe palettes; legible in grayscale; no chartjunk, no 3D, no needless colour. Reviewers and readers must parse it quickly.
4. Fit Cambridge's limits. Size tables/figures to the page box; supply figures at ≥ 300 dpi in a vector or high-resolution format; keep fonts legible after reduction (待核实 exact specs).
5. Main text vs. appendix. Keep the few exhibits that carry the argument in the article; move balance tables, full specifications, and robustness grids to the online appendix (excluded from the word count). This is also how you fit under the word cap.
6. Reproducible. Each exhibit is generated by the master script; numbers match the deposited replication package exactly (see bjps-transparency-and-data).

Discipline-specific exhibits

• Maps for geographic/spatial variation; network diagrams where structure is the point.
• Conjoint AMCE plots; survey-experiment treatment-effect plots.
• Cross-national panels: keep country/year labelling legible; avoid spaghetti plots.
• For qualitative work: timelines, causal-process diagrams, evidence tables linking claims to sources.

Anti-patterns

• Tables that require the prose to be intelligible (not self-contained)
• Reporting significance stars with no effect size or interval
• Cramming every robustness check into the main text (blows the word budget — use the appendix)
• Colour-only encoding that fails in grayscale or for colourblind readers
• Figures supplied below 300 dpi or oversized for Cambridge's page box
• Exhibit numbers/values that don't match the deposited code output

Output format

【Main exhibit】what it shows + why a figure/table
【Self-contained?】title + labels + note + N/units present? [Y/N]
【Accessible?】grayscale-legible + colourblind-safe? [Y/N]
【Fits Cambridge box?】size + ≥300 dpi? [Y/N]
【Article vs appendix】split decided, word-budget impact noted
【Reproducible?】generated by master script, matches package? [Y/N]
【Next】bjps-writing-style

The one-exhibit test (BJPS-specific)

For each main exhibit, ask: Could a reader outside my subfield, who skips the prose, grasp the finding and its uncertainty from this exhibit alone? If not, it is either under-labelled or doing too much. BJPS's broad readership means the carrying exhibit must be legible to a generalist — a dense country-specific table that only an area specialist can read is a positioning failure as much as a design one. Keep one decisive figure in the main text; relegate the supporting grid to the appendix.

Calibration anchors (hedged)

• Exhibits cost words and page space, and BJPS holds figures to Cambridge's size and resolution box — design for the printed page, not just the screen (待核实 exact current specs).
• Because the materials are deposited to the BJPolS Dataverse, every printed number must trace to the master script; an exhibit the deposited code cannot regenerate is a transparency liability.
• A figure with intervals almost always beats a stars-only table for showing magnitude and uncertainty to a cross-subfield reader.

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — plotting/mapping/network packages
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — Cambridge figure/table size + resolution specs