wp-tables-figures

Tables & Figures (wp-tables-figures)

Exhibits are where an expert reviewer checks whether a cross-case result is real. At World Politics tables, figures, and appendixes are excluded from the 12,500-word count — but online supplementary material cannot exceed fifteen pages, so you cannot dump everything into an appendix. Every exhibit must pull its weight and reproduce from the deposited Dataverse package.

When to trigger

• Designing the main results table/figure or a key descriptive/comparative exhibit
• Deciding what belongs in the article vs. the (≤ 15-page) online supplement
• A reviewer found an exhibit unclear, mislabeled, or non-self-contained
• Visualizing cross-national variation, durations, or comparative-historical sequence

Principles

1. Self-contained. A reader should understand each exhibit from its title, axis/column labels, and note alone. State units, the cases/sample, N, time span, data source (e.g., V-Dem, COW), 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, and survival curves communicate magnitude and uncertainty better than a wall of coefficients. Show intervals.
3. Accessible. Colorblind-safe palettes; legible in grayscale; no chartjunk, no 3D. Reviewers and readers must parse it quickly.
4. Main text vs. online supplement. Keep the few exhibits that carry the argument in the article; move balance tables, full specifications, and robustness grids to the online supplement (≤ 15 pages) — used judiciously for material central to the argument, not as an overflow dump.
5. Reproducible. Each exhibit is generated by the master script; numbers match the deposited World Politics Dataverse package exactly.

Comparative + IR exhibits

• Maps for cross-national/spatial variation; network diagrams for alliances, trade, or diffusion.
• Survival/hazard plots for regime duration or conflict onset; event-study plots for shocks.
• For comparative-historical work: timelines, causal-process diagrams, and evidence tables linking each claim to its source (documents, interviews) — these double as qualitative transparency.
• QCA truth tables / set-relation plots where the design is set-theoretic.

Anti-patterns

• Tables that require the prose to be intelligible (not self-contained)
• Reporting significance stars with no effect size or interval
• Treating the ≤ 15-page supplement as an unlimited dumping ground (it is capped)
• Color-only encoding that fails in grayscale or for colorblind readers
• Exhibit numbers/values that don't match the deposited code output

Exhibit-objection patterns and the venue-specific fix

A World Politics referee uses exhibits to check whether a cross-case result is real, so objections track magnitude, transparency, and travel.

Referee objection	The fix this skill drives
"Table needs the prose to be read"	Make it self-contained: units, cases/sample, N, span, source in title and note
"Process-tracing claim not auditable"	Add an evidence table linking each claim to its document/interview source

Worked micro-example (illustrative)

A hypothetical study of alliance reliability and deterrence has one dense 14-column regression table. The redesign carries the argument better:

Before: 14-column coefficient table + stars, no case labels
After:  forest plot across 6 variants, 95% intervals, N = 1,940 dyad-years, COW + ATOP
Supplement: full table + balance checks → Online Appendix (within 15-page cap)

The figure shows magnitude and uncertainty at a glance while the full table stays auditable in the supplement. (Numbers illustrative; verify the cap on the submission page.)

Exhibit pass for World Politics

Run this as a concrete capability pass. First lock the political mechanism, case scope, evidence warrant, and comparative or international implication; then test whether the manuscript addresses comparative and international politics reviewers who expect a big political question, credible evidence, and theory that travels beyond one case.

• Primary move: For every table or figure, state the object, sample/case base, uncertainty display, and one sentence the exhibit proves for this venue.
• Decision ledger: return claim / evidence / blocker / next edit rows so the next pass can patch the manuscript directly.
• Sibling comparison: compare against International Organization for IR institutions/political economy, Journal of Politics for wider political science, Comparative Political Studies for comparative breadth; if the neighboring outlet has the stronger audience claim, recommend re-routing before polishing.
• Verification floor: before submission-ready advice, re-open resources/official-source-map.md for volatile rules and name the one unresolved fact that could change the recommendation.

Output format

【Main exhibit】what it shows + why a figure/table
【Self-contained?】title + labels + note + N/units/cases/source present? [Y/N]
【Accessible?】grayscale-legible + colorblind-safe? [Y/N]
【Article vs supplement】split decided; supplement ≤ 15 pages respected? [Y/N]
【Reproducible?】generated by master script, matches Dataverse package? [Y/N]
【Next】wp-writing-style

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — plotting/mapping/network/survival packages and QCA tools
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — word-count exclusions and the 15-page supplement cap