wp-tables-figures

Tables & Figures (wp-tables-figures)

Exhibits are where an expert reviewer checks whether a cross-case result is real. At World Politics

tables, figures, and appendixes are excluded from the 12,500-word count — but **online

supplementary material cannot exceed fifteen pages**, so you cannot dump everything into an appendix.

Every exhibit must pull its weight and reproduce from the deposited Dataverse package.

When to trigger

• Designing the main results table/figure or a key descriptive/comparative exhibit
• Deciding what belongs in the article vs. the (≤ 15-page) online supplement
• A reviewer found an exhibit unclear, mislabeled, or non-self-contained
• Visualizing cross-national variation, durations, or comparative-historical sequence

Principles

1. Self-contained. A reader should understand each exhibit from its title, axis/column labels, and

note alone. State units, the cases/sample, N, time span, data source (e.g., V-Dem, COW), and what

the estimate is.

1. Figures over dense tables for effects. Coefficient/forest plots, marginal-effects and

predicted-probability plots, event-study and RD plots, and survival curves communicate magnitude

and uncertainty better than a wall of coefficients. Show intervals.

1. Accessible. Colorblind-safe palettes; legible in grayscale; no chartjunk, no 3D. Reviewers and

readers must parse it quickly.

1. Main text vs. online supplement. Keep the few exhibits that carry the argument in the article;

move balance tables, full specifications, and robustness grids to the **online supplement (≤ 15

pages)** — used judiciously for material central to the argument, not as an overflow dump.

1. Reproducible. Each exhibit is generated by the master script; numbers match the deposited

World Politics Dataverse package exactly.

Comparative + IR exhibits

• Maps for cross-national/spatial variation; network diagrams for alliances, trade, or diffusion.
• Survival/hazard plots for regime duration or conflict onset; event-study plots for shocks.
• For comparative-historical work: timelines, causal-process diagrams, and evidence tables linking

each claim to its source (documents, interviews) — these double as qualitative transparency.

• QCA truth tables / set-relation plots where the design is set-theoretic.

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). World Politics is comparative/IR with a strong qualitative tradition; apply the chain below to its quantitative-causal lane and say so when work is case-based.

• 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

• Tables that require the prose to be intelligible (not self-contained)
• Reporting significance stars with no effect size or interval
• Treating the ≤ 15-page supplement as an unlimited dumping ground (it is capped)
• Color-only encoding that fails in grayscale or for colorblind readers
• Exhibit numbers/values that don't match the deposited code output

Exhibit-objection patterns and the venue-specific fix

A World Politics referee uses exhibits to check whether a cross-case result is real, so objections

track magnitude, transparency, and travel.

| Referee objection | The fix this skill drives |

|-------------------|----------------------------|

| "Table needs the prose to be read" | Make it self-contained: units, cases/sample, N, span, source in title and note |

| "Process-tracing claim not auditable" | Add an evidence table linking each claim to its document/interview source |

Worked micro-example (illustrative)

A hypothetical study of alliance reliability and deterrence has one dense 14-column regression

table. The redesign carries the argument better:

Before: 14-column coefficient table + stars, no case labels
After:  forest plot across 6 variants, 95% intervals, N = 1,940 dyad-years, COW + ATOP
Supplement: full table + balance checks → Online Appendix (within 15-page cap)

The figure shows magnitude and uncertainty at a glance while the full table stays auditable in the

supplement. (Numbers illustrative; verify the cap on the submission page.)

Exhibit pass for World Politics

Run this as a concrete capability pass. First lock the political mechanism, case scope, evidence warrant, and comparative or international implication; then test whether the manuscript addresses comparative and international politics reviewers who expect a big political question, credible evidence, and theory that travels beyond one case.

• Primary move: For every table or figure, state the object, sample/case base, uncertainty display, and one sentence the exhibit proves for this venue.
• Decision ledger: return claim / evidence / blocker / next edit rows so the next pass can patch the manuscript directly.
• Sibling comparison: compare against International Organization for IR institutions/political economy, Journal of Politics for wider political science, Comparative Political Studies for comparative breadth; 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

【Main exhibit】what it shows + why a figure/table
【Self-contained?】title + labels + note + N/units/cases/source present? [Y/N]
【Accessible?】grayscale-legible + colorblind-safe? [Y/N]
【Article vs supplement】split decided; supplement ≤ 15 pages respected? [Y/N]
【Reproducible?】generated by master script, matches Dataverse package? [Y/N]
【Next】wp-writing-style

Supplementary resources

• [../../resources/external_tools.md](../../resources/external_tools.md) — plotting/mapping/network/survival packages and QCA tools
• [../../resources/official-source-map.md](../../resources/official-source-map.md) — word-count exclusions and the 15-page supplement cap