Sf tables figures

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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. Accessible. Colorblind-safe palettes; legible in grayscale; vector output (PDF/EPS); no chartjunk, no 3D, no decorative color.
6. 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) or did_summary_to_latex straight from the result_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