jmf-tables-figures

Tables & Figures (jmf-tables-figures)

Exhibits are where an expert reviewer checks whether the family result is real. At JMF they also cost pages: the manuscript page limit (~35 pp.; ~25 for brief reports) includes the abstract, text, tables, and figures. So every exhibit must pull its weight, and many supporting tables belong in supplementary/online materials.

When to trigger

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

Principles

1. Self-contained, modified APA. A reader should understand each exhibit from its title, notes, and labels alone. Follow JMF's modified APA table/figure conventions: descriptive title, clear notes, significance and abbreviations defined, sample size and units stated.
2. Show magnitude and uncertainty. Report effect sizes and confidence intervals, not stars alone; for models, prefer marginal effects / predicted values that a family-science reader can interpret (e.g., predicted probability of divorce by duration).
3. Right exhibit for the design. Survival curves for time-to-event; growth-trajectory plots for panels; APIM path diagrams for dyads; family-structure and decomposition charts for demography.
4. Accessible. Colorblind-safe palettes; legible in grayscale; no chartjunk or needless 3D.
5. Descriptive table first. Family papers typically open results with a clear sample-descriptives table (by group/family structure) — make it informative, not a data dump.
6. Reproducible. Each exhibit is generated by the master script; numbers match the deposited materials exactly (see jmf-transparency-and-data-policy).

Manage the page budget

• Keep the few exhibits that carry the argument in the article; move full model tables, robustness grids, balance tables, and measurement detail to supplementary materials.
• A reader should be able to follow the family story from the main exhibits alone.

Anti-patterns

• Tables that require the prose to be intelligible (not self-contained)
• Significance stars with no effect size, interval, or substantive meaning
• Cramming every robustness check into the main text (blows the page budget — use supplements)
• Color-only encoding that fails in grayscale or for colorblind readers
• Exhibit numbers/values that don't match the deposited code output

Exhibit pass for Journal of Marriage and Family

Treat this skill as an executable review pass, not a prose hint. First lock the family process, population/sample frame, measurement validity, and longitudinal or comparative leverage; then judge whether the current manuscript answers the venue's real reader: family scholars who inspect measurement, household process, longitudinal design, and implications for family theory.

• 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 Demography for population-process emphasis, Social Forces for general sociology, Child Development for child-centered outcomes; 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】what it shows + why a figure/table
【Self-contained?】title + labels + notes + N/units present (modified APA)? [Y/N]
【Magnitude shown?】effect size + interval / predicted values? [Y/N]
【Accessible?】grayscale-legible + colorblind-safe? [Y/N]
【Article vs supplement】split decided, page-budget impact noted
【Reproducible?】generated by master script, matches package? [Y/N]
【Next】jmf-writing-style

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — plotting packages for survival, growth, dyadic, and demographic exhibits
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — page-limit rule and modified-APA style