Norma Marion Alloway Library

Human Kinetics

Tables and figures benefit you when you're writing a paper and when you're reading a paper.

Writing: lets you communicate detailed information without having to write a wall of text.

Reading: provides a visual element to support your understanding of the text.

Making tables and figures

  • If the results can be stated in one sentence, no visual is needed.
  • If the numbers are more important than the trend, use a table.
  • If the trend is more important than the numbers, use a graph.

 

Rules for writing about tables and figures:

  • You must talk about the visual in the text before the visual shows up.
  • When you talk about the visual, provide information. Don't just point the reader to the visual.

GOOD: 

Germination rates were significantly higher after 24 h in running water than in controls (Fig. 4).

DNA sequence homologies for the purple gene from the four congeners (Table 1) show high similarity, differing by at most 4 base pairs.

BAD:

Table 1 shows the summary results for male and female heights at Bates College.

 

Read the guide to tables and figures from Utah State University for details about placement, captions, and formatting.

Reading tables and figures

READING TABLES

Not sure how to read a table? These four steps will get you started.

  1. Identify the population under study;
  2. Identify the variable(s) presented in the table;
  3. Identify the measuring unit used (frequencies, percentages, rates, etc.);
  4. Read the information presented in table cells

Read this guide to reading a statistics table from the Université Laval for more detail.

 

READING FIGURES

Unsure about how a figure adds value to the text? Identify the type of graph being used, and you'll be halfway to understanding the content.

  • Scatter Plots (also known as X-Y Graphs): relationships between two or more quantitative variables that illustrate trends or relationships in the data over time. The points are not connected to each other.
  • Line Graphs: similar to scatter plots but a line connects the data points.
  • Bar Graphs: compare individual sets of data when one of the parameters is categorical, not quantitative.
  • Histograms: a type of bar chart where numbers are grouped into ranges. Histograms show the frequency of a continuous data set.
  • Pie Graphs: show data as a percentage of the total data.

Always look for a legend, and read the text immediately before the figure to understand the author's intention behind including the visual in the text.

Works Consulted

Laval University. (September 13, 2005). Steps in reading a statistics table. https://www.oirs.ulaval.ca/files/content/sites/oirs/files/Tableau-Version%20traduction_Eng.pdf

Utah State Engineering. (n.d.). Additional resources: Tables and figures. https://engineering.usu.edu/students/ewc/writing-resources/tables-figures