newms-tables-figures

Tables & Figures (newms-tables-figures)

NM&S exhibits must be self-contained and legible to an interdisciplinary readership — a discourse scholar should grasp your network figure, and a computational scholar should grasp your quote table. Crucially, NM&S counts tables and figures toward the ~8,000-word target (the limit is all text including notes, references, tables, and charts), so every exhibit must earn its space.

When to trigger

• Designing any table or figure, including qualitative exhibits and platform screenshots
• A reviewer found an exhibit unclear, redundant, or unconvincing
• Deciding what to keep in-text vs. trim, given the strict word/space budget

Exhibit types and what NM&S expects

Exhibit	Make it carry	Common failure
Quote / excerpt table	each quote tied to a claim + informant ID	a wall of decontextualized quotes
Coding-scheme table	categories, definitions, example, reliability	categories with no definitions
Descriptive / content-distribution table	counts + proportions + uncertainty	raw counts only
Network figure	what nodes/edges mean, layout logic	a hairball with no legend
Computational result figure	measure + validation noted, CIs	a pretty plot, no uncertainty
Platform screenshot / interface	annotated, anonymized, permissions noted	unredacted personal data

Design principles (NM&S house expectations)

1. Self-contained. Title, full caption, units, and source let the exhibit stand alone without the text.
2. Anonymize and redact. Screenshots and quotes must not expose identifiable users, handles, faces, or private content (see newms-transparency-and-data).
3. Show uncertainty. Content distributions and computational measures carry intervals or reliability, not bare point values.
4. Accessible. Colorblind-safe palettes, grayscale-legible, readable at print size; vector output.
5. Earn the space. Because exhibits count toward the word target, cut any table that a sentence could replace; merge overlapping figures.

Qualitative exhibits matter at NM&S

A well-built quote-to-claim table (claim → representative excerpt → informant ID → prevalence) does real analytic work: it shows the link from evidence to argument and lets a referee audit it fast. A coding-scheme table with definitions and an example per category is often the difference between a discourse paper read as systematic vs. impressionistic.

Worked micro-example (illustrative)

Exhibit: a quote-to-claim table for "datafied control."
Columns: Claim | Representative excerpt | Informant (pseudonym, role) | # informants expressing
Rows tie each sub-claim (anticipatory compliance; score anxiety; opacity) to evidence + prevalence.
Ethics: handles removed, employer unnamed, screenshots of the app cropped to hide other users.
Space check: replaces three paragraphs of scattered quotes → saves words against the 8,000 target.

Referee pushback → NM&S-specific fix

• "Your quotes feel cherry-picked." → Convert to a quote-to-claim table with prevalence counts.
• "This figure is a hairball." → Add a legend, prune to a backbone, and state the layout algorithm.
• "You exceed the word count." → Cut redundant tables; remember exhibits count toward the target.

Calibration anchors

• Exhibits count toward the word target. Unlike journals that exclude them, NM&S includes tables and charts in the ~8,000-word total — be ruthless about which ones earn their space.
• Qualitative tables are real exhibits. A quote-to-claim or coding table is analysis made auditable.
• Anonymize every exhibit. A leaked handle or face in a screenshot is an ethics failure, not a typo.

Anti-patterns

• A wall of quotes with no claim mapping or prevalence
• Coding categories listed without definitions or examples
• Network/computational figures with no legend, units, or uncertainty
• Unredacted screenshots exposing identifiable users or private content
• Padding the paper with exhibits that push it over the word target

Output format

【Exhibit】type and the one claim it carries
【Self-contained】caption/units/source complete? [Y/N]
【Anonymized】quotes/screenshots redacted? [Y/N]
【Uncertainty】reliability/intervals shown where relevant? [Y/N]
【Space】counts toward word target — justified vs. cut?
【Next】newms-writing-style

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — figure, network, and CAQDAS exhibit tooling
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — NM&S word-target and format facts