Paper charts are the best form for readers to intuitively understand data or materials. The making of a clear, concise and accurate chart often follows certain principles, including whether the elements such as spacing, color, structure and lines are used correctly, and how to make such a chart? This is what we are going to talk about today.

The design of the chart should be based on the expression of the results, and accurately highlighting the author's contribution is a blank area in the paper, that is, the blank area in or around the chart is easy to attract readers' attention and reading. Therefore, the content and visual effect of the chart must be focused. As far as possible, express the representative contribution of the paper clearly with key charts, and don't include too much information that doesn't belong to the work of this paper, so as not to drown the author's contribution in irrelevant details. According to the needs of data or opinion expression (illustrations or tables), choose the most appropriate expression form. The choice of tables or illustrations should be based on the needs of data expression.

The form of the chart should be as simple as possible, and the problems contained should not be too clear about the problems to be expounded in the chart. Answer these questions directly in the title, footnotes or pictures, or indirectly by providing more background in the text. Complex charts should be arranged at the end of the paper as far as possible so that readers can understand them on the basis of some relevant knowledge. Illustrations with comparative or reference significance can be integrated into multiple subgraphs [(a), (b) and (c)] in the same drawing to reduce the complexity of text expression. If the number of illustrations (generally no more than 6) is specified in the journal, it should be strictly implemented.

The advantage of tables is that they can easily list a large number of accurate data or materials, while graphics can express complex data intuitively and effectively. Therefore, if the emphasis is on showing accurate numerical values to readers, it will be in the form of tables; If you want to emphasize the distribution characteristics or changing trend of the displayed data, you should use the graphic method. Be sure to avoid repeating the same data in the form of illustrations and tables unless the reason for repetition is necessary. The presentation of charts should take into account the readers' understanding level and be "self-evident".

Each illustration or table should be self-evident or relatively independent, and all the information in the chart should be clear and complete, so that readers can understand what is expressed in the chart without reading the text. The arrangement of each component (term name, data, curve or acronym, etc.). ) in the chart, the data or arguments expressed should be clear at a glance, so as to avoid accumulating too many distracting details, which will make it difficult to understand the chart.

Reference: Charlesworth's Paper Polishing Skills/