Scientific Writing
Table:
Part-1
Some assumptions
• You, the audience, between you know much more than
I do about this
• Lao Tzu said: “Those who know do not speak/Those
who speak do not know.”
• What a silence had been established in the word if
every person talk correlated with his/her knowledge
(Kafka)
• The rules of scientific writing have a lot of exceptions.
We will discuss them in next sessions
Please don’t consider any
of these suggestions to be
substitutes for carefully
thinking about your
specific situation.
Outline: Table
• General considerations
• Table/text ratio
• Relation of tables
• Building a table
Tables : general considerations
•
At some point between the first draft and the
final version, you must decide
1. Which tables you really need,
2. which tables you should replace by graphs, and
3. Which tables you should discard in favor of
simply summarizing the data in the text.
•
you may change your mind later, but it is
easier to delete tables before you get to the
final version of the paper than to add them
then.
Tables : general considerations
• Keep in mind that many readers tend to skip the
text or read only part of it.
• If readers like your Abstract, they next
examine the Tables and Figures
Tables : general considerations
• Use the fewest tables and illustrations needed to
tell the story.
• In the results section, tables present data that
support results.
• Design figures and tables and figure legends
and footnotes in parallel, so as to prepare the
reader for the next table or illustration.
Tables : general considerations
• It is important therefore that tables and
illustrations
–
–
–
–
have strong visual impact,
are informative and
easy to comprehend, and
can stand alone.
Each table should deal with a specific
problem.
DECIDING ON USE OFTABTES
Uses for Table
1. Presenting precise numeric values rather than just
proportions or trends.
2. Presenting large numbers of related data compactly.
• Summarizing information made clearer in a tabular
form than in running text ("list tables").
• Presenting complex information more clearly than in
running text or a figure. They provide the
possibility of side-by-side comparisons of
those facts.
•
•
to present individual data for all subjects and objects studied
to make a point by presenting summary data (for example, means with
standard deviations).
Tables : general considerations
• If the paper is to report clinical or laboratory
research, an epidemiologic study, or a drug trial,
you gathered analyzed numerical data in tables
for a synopsis of your finding before you began
to write.
• If your paper is to be a review article, you may
have compiled tables to help you pull together
concise summaries of what you had read.
Each table should deal with a specific
problem.
• Many authors use tables to highlight small but
important parcels of information. However,
such information can be presented more
effectively in text.
• Count the number of distinct pieces of
information you plan to include in your table. If
there are fewer than five or six, text will suffice.
Such a table is illustrated in Figure 14.1. Do not use this kind of table in
your paper; its content can be easily summarized in the text.
Summarized in the text
• Of the 3 patients with negative
penicillin skin-tests, I was positive to
noxicillin. Of the 7 patients positive for
penicillin, 2 were positive for
noxicillin. The difference in noxicillin
positive between the 2 penicillin
groups is not statistically significant,
Fisher's exact test (p>0.05).
• If you persist in using a large number
of such simple tables in your paper,
you give the editor the impression that
you have spent little time in thinking
about how to translate your meeting
talk into a journal paper.
Table/text ratio
• If you are going to use tables, do not delay in
finding out what numbers of tables the journal
may allow for text of a particular length.
• See information-for-authors
• Do not submit tables as photograph.
• Place explanatory matters in footnotes, not in
the heading.
Table/text ratio
• If it does not, look at papers in some recent
issues, estimate the number of text words
(excluding references), count the tables and
illustrations (single or multipart figures), and
calculate the number of tables and illustrations
per thousand words of text.
Table/text ratio
• If a typical paper in the journal has an estimated
text length of 3300 words accompanied by 4
tables, the ratio of tables to text is 4/3.3
thousand or 1.2 tables per one thousand words
of text.
• If your paper has a text of about 4800 words,
round this figure down to 4000. Then 4 x 1.2:
4.8 tables; in round numbers, 5 tables.
Table/text ratio
• A useful general rule is no more than I table (or
illustration) per 1000 words of text.
• Because the average page of text in a manuscript with
double spaced text and with l-inch (or 3-centimeter)
margins usually runs to between 200 and 250 words,
the rule can be stated roughly as no more than I table
(or illustration) per 4 pages of manuscript text.
• Some journals may accept a larger number of tables in
relation to text length, but many will not because of the
resulting difficulties in avoiding confusing page
layouts.
The Logic
• Thus the first step in deciding on use of tables is
figuring the maximum number the journal will
probably accept in relation to the length of the
paper.
• If you estimate that five tables and illustrations
would be acceptable, and you will need one
illustration, you will be able to use no more than
four tables.
• But will you really need the maximum number
the journal might accommodate
The Logic
• Peer reviewers and editors are likely to point
out tables with so few data that they can be
dropped in favor of giving the data in the text.
• Tables are more expensive to compose than
text, so editors are prone to ask authors to
eliminate tables
Tables of Numerical Data
• If you have read a short version of your paper at
a research meeting, you may have shown some
slides with simplified structures that made them
easy for an audience to read rapidly.
• That would have been good judgment a simple
table can economically summarize and
emphasize data for the desired effect on an
audience.
Illustrations instead of table
• Some tables should be dropped, nor
to be replaced by text statements but
by illustrations.
• These are tables with data more
important for their known or
potential relationships than their
precise values.
Illustrations
known ness
than their precise values
Relationships
than their precise values
some tables should be dropped, nor to be replaced by text statements but by
illustrations. These are tables with data more important for their known or
potential relationships than their precise values.
• 1) Data on two related variables: a dependent
variable whose values are determined by an
independent variable, such as maximum systolic
blood pressure after different doses of
epinephrine, or maximum blood levels of
alcohol after different doses of whiskey.
some tables should be dropped, nor to be replaced by text statements but by
illustrations. These are tables with data more important for their known or
potential relationships than their precise values.
• 2) Data on one or more variables changing
through time, such as clinical data like
temperature, blood pressure, leukocyte counts
for a patient during a hospital stay.
• Example:
5-year Survival Rates
(From Fletcher)
% Surviving
100
80
Age at 100 yrs
Aneurysm
AIDS
CML
60
40
20
0
0
1
2
3
Years
4
5
some tables should be dropped, nor to be replaced by text statements but by
illustrations. These are tables with data more important for their known or
potential relationships than their precise values.
• 3) Data important to the reader for the extent of
their differences and how these differences
might be related to unknown factors, such as
differences in mortality rates for stomach cancer
in the individual states of the United States.
When data are more important for their known or
potential relationships than their precise values.
• Data of these kinds can usually be presented
more effectively in one or more types of
illustrations:
–
–
–
–
graphs,
charts of patients' clinical courses;
epidemiologic maps; and
other types.
Variation in current practice
Use tables when the reader will want
exact values for numerical data.
• In a study that included measurements of serum
electrolytes (sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium,
phosphate, magnesium) and acid-base variables (pH,
CO2, bicarbonate), some readers may be interested in
carrying out their own calculations of relations among
the data.
• you could not meet these possible needs in the text
without providing a long stretch of text crowded with
numbers and hard to read.
• Example:
The rules for use of tables with
numerical data can be summarized
• Do not use tables when the data can be
summarized in the text with a few sentences.
• Do not use tables when the relations of data to
each other or to a time sequence can be shown
more clearly in a graph than described in the
text.
• Do use tables when readers will want the exact
values of more data than can be summarized in
a few sentences of text.
don’t use
tables
data can be
summarized
(text)
relations or
time sequence
(graph)
options
data can be
summarized
(text)
relations or
time sequence
(graph)
Readers want
exact values
(table)
Tables Instead of Text
• In some papers, descriptive information (which
can be summary statements, data, or both) may
be more efficiently presented in a table than in
the paper's main text.
• Perhaps the most frequent uses of tables in
place of text are
– summarizing research reports in a review article or
– case information in a case-series analysis.
Tables Instead of Text/case report
• Full description of 5, 10, or more cases in the usual
format of case reports can take up many pages of text.
• An efficient solution may be a large table that gives for
each case only the essential numerical data (age,
weight, temperature, and laboratory-test values) and
brief descriptive phrases for symptoms, physical
findings, roentgenographic findings, and so on.
• You might retain a full case report or two in the text to
give the clinical "flavor" of the disease or syndrome.
Tables Instead of Text/case report
• If your papers to be synoptic (a "teaching"
article, a review), you can emphasize important
points by listing in small tables the main
features of a disease or syndrome, symptoms
and signs of adverse effects, and differential
diagnoses, such "list" tables often include the
frequency or percentage of occurrence for each
item; these additional data help to make clear
the relative importance of the listed items.
Level of Exposure to Fine Particulate Matter and the
Risk of Death from Cardiovascular Causes in Women.
Estimated Hazard Ratios for the Time to the First Cardiovascular Event or Death
Associated with an Exposure Increase of 10 μg per Cubic Meter in the Level of Fine
Particulate Matter (PM2.5).*
Changes in Glycated Hemoglobin and Fasting Plasma
Glucose Levels during the 13-Week Study Period.
Plasma Aspartate Aminotransferase and Alanine
Aminotransferase Concentrations during the Run-in Period
, the Treatment Period and the Post-Treatment Follow-up Period
Relations of Tables
• Check the relation of the remaining tables to
the text to be sure that their sequence is
correctly tied into the text sequence; then
number the tables accordingly. Next consider
the tables as a sequence, with appropriate
relations to one another.
Relations of Tables
• In many clinical papers the title of the first table
may adequately identify the main subject of the
paper, with shorter titles for the following
tables.
• Example : The first table, for example, in a
review of 25 cases of puncture wound of the
heart, might be titled "puncture wound of the
Heart: clinical Features".
• The second table might then be simply
"operative Findings and Postoperative course".
• !
Relations of Tables
• A look-at the tables by themselves in the
proposed sequence will help you judge whether
the table, are understandable on their own (and
they should be) and however their titles are
related to one another.
Relations
of tables
Title
Sequence
PARTS OF A
TABLE
PARTS OF A TABLE
PARTS OF A TABLE
TABLE COMPONENTS
Table
title
row
heading
column
heading
rows
data
footnotes
logical Structures for Tables
• Each of your tables should be
readily understood without
referring to the text; an
adequate title will help to
ensure that understanding.
• Needed even more is a logical
structure for the data in the
field that can be deduced from
the column headings and row
headings
logical Structures for Tables
• Consider a table summarizing data from several cases.
Most readers will expect to find the data arranged in a
sequence of columns read from left to right that
corresponds to how the data were collected in the
clinical course.
• In such a table in the row might be logically arranged
so that "patient 1" (the first row) is the youngest patient
and "Patient 6" (the sixth row) is the oldest.
• Another sequence of rows might progress from the
"mildest cases" at the top to the ..severest cases" at the
bottom.
Tables Instead of Text/case report???
• The sequence in such tables should have a
readily grasped logic:
–
–
–
–
descending order of frequency;
grouping by body systems;
chronologic order, or
some other clear basis.
• The table mixes dichotomous data, such as
history of diabetes, with continuous data such as
body weight.
Building
A table
Title
Column
Row
headings headings
Fields
Foot
notes
The tables: title
• The rules on which words in a table title should
be capitalized will vary from journal to journal.
Look at the tables in the publication in which you
are interested and style your table titles the same
way.
The tables: title
• Keep the title brief, and
ensure that it relates
clearly to the content of
the table.
• The title should be
sufficiently descriptive
to tell the reader what
will appear in the table.
• "Results of the Study" is
not good enough.
The tables: title
• Keep the title brief, and
ensure that it relates
clearly to the content of
the table.
• The title should be
sufficiently descriptive
to tell the reader what
will appear in the table.
• "Results of the Study" is
not good enough.
The tables: title
• The title of a table, like the title of
a figure, states
–the topic or
–the point
The tables: title
• The title should be brief. The details included in
a title depend on the type of table.
• For tables that give background information, the
title should state the topic of the information
listed in the body of the table (that is, the
variables) and also the animal or population, the
material described, or both.
• The form is: Y in Z orY of Z.
The tables title: Y in Z or Y of Z.
• For example, in the title
of Table 1 , “Clinical
Characteristics of the
Infants,” “clinical
characteristics” is the
topic (Y) and “the
infants” (that is, the
infants in the study) is
the population described
(Z).
The tables: title
• In the title “Phospholipid Composition of
Cardiac Lymph from Normal Dogs,”
“phospholipid composition” is the topic (Y),
“cardiac lymph” is the material described (Z),
and “normal dogs” are the animals (Z).
The tables: title
• For tables that present data from experiments
that have only dependent variables, similar titles
are appropriate.
• For example, in the title “Dimensions of Cell
Bodies in the Tracheal Ganglia of Ferrets,”
– “dimensions” is the topic (dependent variable) (Y),
– “cell bodies in the tracheal ganglia” is the material
described (Z), and
– “ferrets” are the animals (Z).
The tables: title
• For tables that present data from experiments
that have both independent and dependent
variables, the title should state the independent
variable(s) (X), the dependent variable(s) (Y),
and the animal or population, the material
described, or both (Z). It is not necessary to
mention the controls in the title.
• Two standard forms for these titles are
– Effect of X on Y in Z
– Y during X in Z.
Effect of X on Y in Z
The tables title: Effect of X on Y in Z
• For example, in the title “Effects of
Methacholine on Electrical
Properties and Ion Fluxes in
Tracheal Epithelium From Cats and
Ferrets,”
– “methacholine” is the independent
variable,
– “electrical properties and ion
fluxes” are the dependent
variables,
– “tracheal epithelium” is the
material, and
– “cats and ferrets” are the animals.
(See also the title for Table 2.)
Y during X in Z.
The tables title Y during X in Z.
• In the title “Plasma
Variables Before and After
Protein Loss in Lambs,”
– “plasma variables” are the
dependent variables,
– “before and after” is used
instead of “during,”
– “protein loss” is the
independent variable, and
– “lambs” are the animals. (See
also Table 3.)
stating the point
• Even better than stating the topic in the title of
the table is stating the point (narrowing down
the TS).
• When the title states the point, the reader knows
exactly what to look for in the table.
• For example, in the title “Increase in Helicity of
Abortifacient Proteins in the Presence of
Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate,” “increase in helicity”
is the point.
• It is not usual due to multiple variables in tables
TITLE
Topic
Stating the Point
Same as a
broad TS
Same as a
narrow TS
category term
• To keep titles brief, use a
category term instead of
listing all the dependent
variables.
• For example, in Table 3,
“hemodynamic
variables” is the category
term for all the
dependent variables in
the table.
category term
• To ensure that the title relates
clearly to the table, use the
same key terms in the title as
in the column headings, or
use a category term in the
title instead of two or more
column headings. (The key
terms and category term
should be the same as those
used in the text.)
category term
• For example: "Effects of inhalational
anaesthetic X on systemic haemodynamics") in
the title rather than repeating several column
headings (for example, "Effects of inhalational
anaesthetic X on arterial blood pressure,
central venous pressure, cardiac output, and
systemic vascular resistance".
category term
• For example, in Table 1,
“infants” in the title
corresponds with “infant” in
the first column heading,
and “clinical characteristics”
is a category term for the
remaining column headings
(sex, birth weight,
gestational age, age at study,
postconceptual age,
diagnosis).
Category term?
Find a category term : Y in Z or Y of Z.
Clinical and biochemical variables for all subjects and
for those with an iGFR < or ≥ 60 ml/min per 1.73 m2
Find a category term
Test characteristics for various markers of renal function
for detecting moderate chronic kidney disease (iGFR cutoff of < 60 ml/min per 1.73 m2)
Find category term
Better title?
TITLE
Use Variables
Stating the Point
Use Category terms
TITLE
Background
Topic
One variable
Two variable
Y in Z orY of Z.
Effect of X on Y in Z
Y during X in Z.
Y in Z orY of Z.
Name of table
needs details?
Specific/clear
Need not details?
Foot note
Title
Thank you