joc-tables-figures

Tables & Figures (joc-tables-figures)

Exhibits are where an expert reviewer checks whether the result is real. At JoC they also cost pages: the main-document limit of 35 pages explicitly includes the abstract, text, references, tables, figures, and endnotes. So every exhibit must pull its weight, and formatting follows APA 7th edition.

When to trigger

• Designing the main results table/figure or a key descriptive exhibit
• Deciding what belongs in the article vs. the supplemental materials
• A reviewer found an exhibit unclear, mislabeled, or non-self-contained
• Trimming to the 35-page limit by moving exhibits to supplemental materials

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, mediation path diagrams, and interaction plots communicate magnitude and uncertainty better than a wall of coefficients. Show intervals.
3. APA format. Table/figure numbering, titles, and notes per APA 7th edition; consistent decimals and reported statistics.
4. Accessible. Colorblind-safe palettes; legible in grayscale; no chartjunk, no 3D, no needless color. Reviewers and readers must parse it quickly.
5. Main text vs. supplemental. Keep the few exhibits that carry the argument in the article; move full specifications, robustness grids, and codebooks to the supplemental materials (also anonymized). This is also how you fit under 35 pages.
6. Reproducible. Each exhibit is generated by the master script; numbers match the materials behind your Data Availability Statement (see joc-open-science-and-transparency).

Discipline-specific exhibits

• Conjoint/AMCE plots; survey- and message-experiment treatment-effect plots.
• Content-analysis reliability and category-frequency exhibits.
• For computational work: topic-model/corpus diagnostics, validation-against-human tables.
• For qualitative work: evidence tables linking claims to sources; coding-scheme summaries.

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 35-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 Communication

Treat this skill as an executable review pass, not a prose hint. First lock the communication process, platform/media setting, construct measurement, and study design; then judge whether the current manuscript answers the venue's real reader: communication reviewers who balance theory, media context, measurement, and social implications.

• 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 Communication Research for quantitative communication, New Media & Society for platform focus, Human Communication Research for theory testing; 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 + note + N/units present? [Y/N]
【APA format?】numbering/titles/notes per APA 7th? [Y/N]
【Accessible?】grayscale-legible + colorblind-safe? [Y/N]
【Article vs supplemental】split decided, page-budget impact noted
【Reproducible?】generated by master script, matches materials? [Y/N]
【Next】joc-writing-style

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — plotting, mediation-diagram, and corpus-diagnostic packages
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — 35-page rule (includes tables/figures) and APA 7th style