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.

1. 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.

1. 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.

1. 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.

1. Accessible. Colorblind-safe palettes; legible in grayscale; vector output (PDF/EPS); no

chartjunk, no 3D, no decorative color.

1. 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](../../../shared-resources/empirical-methods/execution-with-mcp.md). 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](../../../Journal-of-Finance-Skills/resources/worked-examples/02-execution-walkthrough.md).

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](../../resources/external_tools.md) — plotting/mapping/network packages
• [../../resources/official-source-map.md](../../resources/official-source-map.md) — the 10 tables-and-figure-panels and 10-page supplementary limits