Sci Figures

Display Items (sci-figures)

When to trigger

• Figure count exceeds the format budget (Report ≤4, Article ≤6).
• Fonts are unreadable at print size, or colors are not colorblind-safe.
• Bar charts hide the underlying data (no points, no n).
• Panels are screenshots of software output pasted into the figure.

Sizing for Science columns

Design figures to render at final print width without rescaling text:

• 1 column ≈ 5.5 cm wide
• 2 columns ≈ 12 cm wide
• Full page ≈ 18 cm wide
• Minimum font in the final figure: ~6 pt (sans-serif, e.g., Helvetica/Arial). Text must stay legible after reduction.
• Line weights ≥ 0.5 pt; avoid hairlines that vanish in print.

Show the data, not just the summary

• Replace bar-of-means with dot plots / box+points / violins+points wherever n is small.
• Always state n (and what n is: cells? animals? independent experiments?) in the legend.
• Error bars must be defined in the legend (SD vs SEM vs 95% CI) — never undefined.
• For images (blots, micrographs): show scale bars, and present full, uncropped key blots in Supplementary.

Color and accessibility

• Use a colorblind-safe palette (avoid red/green as the only contrast).
• Don't encode meaning by color alone — add shape/pattern/labels.
• RGB color mode for online; ensure adequate contrast in grayscale.
• No rainbow/jet colormaps for continuous data — use perceptually uniform maps (viridis, etc.).

Figure legend structure

Each legend: a short title sentence (the claim of the figure), then per-panel descriptions (A, B, C…), then statistics (test, n, error-bar definition, P values or exact values). The legend should let the figure stand alone.

Integrity rules (non-negotiable)

• No selective deletion, splicing, or beautification of gels/blots/images without a labeled boundary; disclose any grouping.
• Quantitative comparisons must come from the same experiment/exposure.
• Keep unprocessed source images and source data — Science may request them (sci-data).

Multi-panel discipline

• ≤ ~6 panels per figure; if more, split or move to Supplementary.
• Consistent axis scales across comparable panels.
• One message per figure; the legend title states it.

Figure pass for Science

Use this as a second-pass capability check. First lock the broad discovery claim, decisive evidence, uncertainty/limitations, and why the result belongs in a general-science weekly; then test whether the manuscript addresses general-science reviewers and editors who ask whether the result changes a broad field, is technically decisive, and can be understood outside the subdiscipline.

• Primary move: Make each figure prove one claim for a broad reader: object, contrast, uncertainty, scale, and failure or limitation should be visible.
• Decision ledger: return claim / evidence / blocker / next edit rows so the next pass can patch the manuscript directly.
• Neighbor test: compare against Nature for similar broad-scope novelty, PNAS for academy-wide breadth, specialist journals when the claim is field-internal; 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

【Item count】 N (budget: Report ≤4 / Article ≤6) → ok / over
【Sizing】 designed at 5.5 / 12 / 18 cm? fonts ≥6 pt? yes/no
【Data shown】 points + n + defined error bars? yes/no
【Colorblind-safe】 yes/no (palette used)
【Integrity】 scale bars / uncropped blots in SM / source data kept? yes/no
【Fixes】 [...]
【Next】 sci-statistics

Anti-patterns

• Do not paste raw Stata/Prism/ImageJ screenshots as figures.
• Do not use bars to hide n=3 with huge spread — show the points.
• Do not leave error bars undefined or mix SD and SEM across panels.
• Do not rely on red-vs-green as the sole encoding.

Source: brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills → Science-Skills/skills/sci-figures/SKILL.md