January 24, 2018

R.T. Thomason, Ph.D., Figure Editor

Happy New Year, Figure designers! Hope you all are well and are starting off the new year right… by setting good intentions to design and format your figures for your manuscripts with consideration, thoughtfulness, and most importantly, close attention to detail. As an editor, when designing and formatting, I always try to put myself in the shoes of my reader (remember when we discussed audience analysis?) and ask myself this simple question:

 

Can I look at this figure and get all the information I need without having to read the text?

 

If your answer is yes, then you’ve designed a useful figure. If your answer is no, back to the drawing board.

 

Next time on It Figures… we’ll start setting out New Year intentions.