Table and Figure Design: Presenting Complex Data for Maximum Clarity

A table or figure in a dissertation is a designed object — a deliberate arrangement of information intended to communicate a specific finding more efficiently than prose alone could accomplish.

That definition changes where the design begins. The first question is what this table is supposed to show, and what arrangement of information shows it most efficiently; asking what data to include starts at the wrong end. Most tables in dissertation manuscripts include too much information. The author has run a complex analysis, has access to a large output file, and includes everything the software generated on the grounds that completeness is a scholarly virtue. In a table, completeness works against the reader, who has to dig through the whole grid to find the information that matters. The reader's cognitive load is the author's design problem. Tables that maximize information density without regard for the reader's ability to extract meaning from that density are failing at their primary job.

The design principle. Every table should be designed around a single, identifiable purpose. Before building the table, the author should be able to state, in one sentence, what the table is supposed to show, and if that sentence requires more than one main clause, the table is probably trying to show two things and should be split into two tables. Some authors cannot write the sentence at all. Their table has yet to be conceptually organized, and the design work is still ahead of them.

Table formatting in APA 7th. Tables in APA 7th have a specific structure: a table number in bold above the table, a title in italics on the following line, the table body, and any notes below the table. The table number and title are separate elements that appear above the table, outside the table itself. Notes go below. They fall into three categories: general notes (labeled "Note."), specific notes (labeled with superscript lowercase letters corresponding to cells in the table), and probability notes (labeled with asterisks indicating significance levels). Authors who embed the title within the table border, or who place notes inside the table, are formatting incorrectly.

Column and row headers. Column headers should be as brief as possible while remaining unambiguous. If all values in a column share a unit of measurement, the unit belongs in the column header, and it should not be repeated in every cell. Row headers should be grammatically parallel throughout. When some row headers are nouns and others are phrases or clauses, the design work is unfinished.

Figures. Figures in APA 7th follow the same placement as tables: the figure number and title go above the figure. The figure number is bold. The title appears one double-spaced line below the number, in italic title case, and any notes go below the figure. APA 6th placed figure captions below the figure, and authors trained in that edition often carry the old placement forward; it is one of the most consistent formatting errors in dissertations. Figures should include a legend when they contain multiple data series, with the legend appearing within the figure panel rather than as a separate element.

The referral requirement. Every table and figure must be referred to in the text before it appears, and the referral should direct the reader's attention to the specific finding the table or figure is meant to illustrate. Compare two versions. "Table 3 shows the descriptive statistics" points the reader at a grid of numbers and leaves the interpretation to them; "Table 3 shows the distribution of scores across groups, with Group A demonstrating substantially higher variance than Groups B and C" tells the reader what to find there.