brycewang-stanford Tables & Figures (sf-tables-figures)
At Social Forces exhibits are rationed: a manuscript "may not contain more than 10 tables and figure panels." That single rule drives the whole exhibit strategy — you choose the ten that carry the argument and move the rest into the ≤ 10-page supplementary materials. Exhibits are also where an expert reviewer checks whether the result is real, so each must be self-contained and clear.
When to trigger
- Designing the main results table/figure or a key descriptive exhibit
- You have more than 10 candidate tables and figure panels and must cut
- Deciding what belongs in the article vs. the (≤ 10-page) supplementary materials
- A reviewer found an exhibit unclear, mislabeled, or non-self-contained
Principles
- Count panels, not just figures. The cap is 10 tables and figure panels combined — a multi-panel figure spends several of your ten. Plan the budget before you design.
- Self-contained. A reader should understand each exhibit from its title, axis/column labels, and note alone. State units, sample, N, and what the estimate is.
- Figures over dense tables for effects. Coefficient/marginal-effects plots, event-study and decomposition plots, survival curves, and network diagrams communicate magnitude and uncertainty better than a wall of coefficients. Show intervals.
- Consolidate. Combine related models into one well-labeled table; merge near-duplicate panels; send balance tables, full specifications, and robustness grids to the supplementary file.
- Accessible. Colorblind-safe palettes; legible in grayscale; vector output (PDF/EPS); no chartjunk, no 3D, no decorative color.
- Reproducible. Each exhibit is generated by the master script; numbers match what the data
availability statement points to (see
sf-data-and-transparency).
Rationing the ten panels
| Pressure | Move |
|---|---|
| Three robustness tables | one summary table or a coefficient plot; rest to supplement |
| A 4-panel descriptive figure | keep the 1-2 panels that carry the point |
| Balance / first-stage tables | supplementary materials (within the 10-page cap) |
| Full regression output | report key coefficients; full table to supplement |
Execution bridge (StatsPAI / Stata MCP)
Generate exhibits from the fitted result, not by retyping numbers (the usual source of
body-vs-supplement drift). Full map: execution-with-mcp. Social Forces is quantitative sociology — survey and administrative panels; emphasize identification, decomposition, and multilevel inference.
- Tables:
etable(multi-model columns) ordid_summary_to_latexstraight from theresult_id. - Figures:
plot_from_result/enhanced_event_study_plot/event_study_table— axis units and the SE/clustering note baked in. - Every note names the estimator + clustering and states the effect size in interpretable units.
See a full fitted-result → exhibit chain in the JF execution walkthrough.
Anti-patterns
- Designing exhibits without counting panels, then over the limit at submission
- A multi-panel figure that quietly consumes most of the ten-panel budget
- Tables that require the prose to be intelligible (not self-contained)
- Reporting significance stars with no effect size or interval
- Color-only encoding that fails in grayscale or for colorblind readers
- Exhibit numbers/values that don't match the deposited/declared data and code
How an SF referee reads an exhibit
At Social Forces an expert referee uses the exhibits to decide whether the result is real before reading a word of prose. Across the journal's broad quantitative range — stratification tables, demographic decompositions, event-history curves, network diagrams — the same gate applies:
| Exhibit choice | Passes the SF panel test when… | Wastes panels when… |
|---|---|---|
| Main effect | An effects plot shows magnitude + interval | A stars-only table hides effect size |
| Robustness set | Consolidated into one panel or supplement | Three near-identical tables each spend a panel |
| Descriptive figure | Only the 1-2 argument-carrying panels kept | A 4-panel grid spends the budget on context |
| First-stage / balance | Lives in the ≤10-page supplement | Occupies main-text panels |
Calibration (hedged): the cap is 10 tables and figure panels combined, counting each panel of a multi-panel figure separately, with supplementary materials near 10 pages — verify the exact current numbers against the journal's submission guidelines, since exhibit limits can change between regimes.
Worked vignette (illustrative)
A motherhood-wage-penalty study has 14 candidate panels: a fixed-effects table, a 4-panel heterogeneity figure, two robustness tables, a balance table, a first-stage table. Rationing to ten: keep one marginal-effects plot (about 6% per child, illustrative, with 95% intervals), collapse the heterogeneity figure to the two panels that show the gradient, fold both robustness tables into one coefficient plot, and move balance and first-stage tables to the supplement — from 14 to roughly 7 main panels with magnitude and uncertainty visible at a glance.
Referee fixes: "table is not self-contained" → put units, sample, N, and estimand in title and note; "over the panel cap" → consolidate robustness into one panel and push detail to the supplement.
Output format
【Panel budget】total tables + figure panels ≤ 10? [Y/N] (count)
【Main exhibit】what it shows + why a figure/table
【Self-contained?】title + labels + note + N/units present? [Y/N]
【Accessible?】grayscale-legible + colorblind-safe? [Y/N]
【Article vs supplement】split decided (supplement ≤ 10 pages)
【Reproducible?】generated by master script, matches data/code? [Y/N]
【Next】sf-writing-style
Supplementary resources
../../resources/external_tools.md— plotting/mapping/network packages../../resources/official-source-map.md— the 10 tables-and-figure-panels and 10-page supplementary limits