4 Visual Presentation of Data

Maps are useful to demonstrate relationships or trends that involve location and distance or to illustrate study sampling methods (Example ). Maps may be used to demonstrate geographic relationships (eg, spread of a disease). Choropleth maps depict quantitative data (eg, relative frequencies by county, state, country, province, or region), with differences in numerical data, such as rates, shown by shading or colors. Authors should verify map details to avoid misspelled or incorrect names, deleted features, distorted geographic relationships, misplaced or missing cities, and misplaced boundaries. ...Less

Nontabular material does not contain cells of individual data. Usually it is set off from the text by a box, rules, shading, or other elements. Sometimes the box or sidebar is cited in the text (following the citation rules for tables) and other times (eg, in news articles) it is not. Any references that appear in nontabular material should also appear in the reference list and be numbered in order of their appearance (see , Table Components).A textual table or box contains words, phrases, or sentences, often in list form. Boxes are used to emphasize key points, summarize information, and/or ...Less

Additional digits (including zeros) should not be added, eg, after the decimal point, to provide all data entries with the same number of digits. Doing so may indicate more precise results than actually were calculated or measured. A percentage or decimal quotient should contain no more than the number of digits in the denominator. For example, the percentage for the proportion 9 of 28 should be reported as 32% (or decimal quotient 0.32), not 32.1% (or 0.321) (see , Statistics, Significant Digits and Rounding Numbers). Values reporting laboratory data should be provided and rounded, if appropriate, according to the number ...Less

For a table to have maximum effectiveness, the information it contains must be arranged logically and clearly so that the reader can quickly understand the key point and find the specific data of interest. Information in tables should be organized into columns and rows by type and category, thereby simplifying access and display of data and information.During the planning and creation of a table, the author should consider the primary comparisons of interest. Because the English language is read first horizontally (from left to right) and then vertically (from top to bottom), the primary comparisons should be shown horizontally across ...Less

Photographs and other images in biomedical articles are used to display clinical findings, experimental results, or clinical procedures. Such figures include radiographs and those from other types of medical imaging, photomicrographs, and photographs of patients and biopsy specimens. The availability of digital imaging has provided the ability to enhance images of photographic scientific data, such as clinical images or gel electrophoresis bands. Such digital manipulation may produce misleading or fraudulent images. Some publications require that authors who submit digital images also submit the original gels, while others ask authors to list image adjustments in the paper itself. ...Less

In the published article, figures should be placed as close as possible to their first mention in the text. Figures should be cited in consecutive numerical order in the text, and references to figures should include their respective numbers. For example: Patient participation and progress through the study are shown in Figure 1. Figure 1 shows patient participation and progress through the study. Patient participation and progress through the study were monitored by the investigators (Figure 1).Given the potential for variability in the page layout and online publication process, the text should not refer to figures by position on the ...Less

As with numbers and abbreviations, rules for punctuation may be less restrictive in tables to save space (see , Punctuation). For example, slashes may be used to present dates (eg, 04/27/03 for April 27, 2003) and hyphens may be used to present ranges (eg, 60 90 for 60 to 90) (see , Numbers and Percentages). Phrases and sentences in tables may use end punctuation if required for readability (eg, if cells contain multisentence entries). ...Less

Sidebars typically contain supplementary information, including related topics or lists of sources for further reading (Example and Example ).While the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is fairly confident it has a handle on this year’s flu season, it is keeping a wary eye on avian flu activities in Asia. Avian flu is worrisome because it can cross into the human population, and the infection has proven to have a high mortality rate.Earlier this year, an outbreak of influenza A (H5N1) occurred in Asia, with 100 million birds dying of the disease or being culled to contain its spread. ...Less

Line graphs have 2 or 3 axes with continuous quantitative scales on which data points connected by curves demonstrate the relationship between 2 or more quantitative variables, such as changes over time. Line graphs usually are designed with the dependent variable on the vertical axis (y-axis) and the independent variable on the horizontal axis (x-axis) (Example , Example ).Survival plots of time-to-event outcomes, such as from Kaplan-Meier analyses (see Figure in , Study Design and Statistics), display the proportion of individuals, represented on the y-axis as a proportion or percentage, remaining free of or experiencing a specific outcome over time, ...Less

Formal tables in scientific articles conventionally contain 5 major elements: title, column headings, stubs (row headings), body (data field) consisting of individual cells (data points), and footnotes (Example ). Details pertaining to elements of style for table construction vary among publications; what follows is based on the general style of JAMA and the Archives Journals.Each table should have a brief, specific, descriptive title, usually written as a phrase rather than as a sentence, that distinguishes the table from other data displays in the article. The title should convey the topic of the table succinctly but should not provide detailed background ...Less