---
name: commres-tables-figures
description: Use when building tables and figures for a Communication Research (CR) manuscript so exhibits are self-contained, accessible, and formatted to APA. CR is quantitative, so exhibits must show effect sizes and uncertainty, not just stars. Designs exhibits; it does not run the analysis.
---

# Tables & Figures (commres-tables-figures)

Exhibits are where a CR reviewer checks whether the result is real and whether the **mechanism** holds.
Because CR is a quantitative, APA-reporting journal, every table and figure must show **effect sizes
and uncertainty**, not significance stars alone, and follow **APA** formatting.

## When to trigger

- Designing the main results table/figure or a key descriptive/measurement exhibit
- Deciding what belongs in the article vs. the online supplement
- A reviewer found an exhibit unclear, mislabeled, or not self-contained
- Presenting mediation/moderation results readably

## Principles

1. **Self-contained.** A reader should understand each exhibit from its title, column/axis labels, and
   note alone — without hunting through the text. State units, sample, N, and what the estimate is.
2. **Show magnitude and uncertainty.** Report effect sizes (d, η²ₚ, standardized β, R²) with CIs or
   SDs. Coefficient/forest plots, marginal-effects and predicted-value plots, **mediation path
   diagrams**, and **interaction (simple-slopes) plots** communicate better than a wall of coefficients.
3. **APA format.** Table/figure numbering, titles, and notes per **APA**; consistent decimals;
   report the statistics APA expects (M, SD, test statistic with df, effect size, exact p).
4. **Measurement exhibits.** For SEM/CFA, show the measurement model (loadings, fit indices); for
   content analysis, report category frequencies and **intercoder reliability** by category.
5. **Accessible.** Colorblind-safe palettes; legible in grayscale; no chartjunk, no 3D, no needless
   color. Reviewers must parse it quickly.
6. **Main text vs. supplement.** Keep the few exhibits that carry the argument in the article; move
   full specifications, robustness grids, scale items, and codebooks to the **online supplement**
   (also anonymized) — this also helps you fit the page budget.
7. **Reproducible.** Each exhibit is generated by the master script; numbers match the deposited
   materials (see `commres-transparency-and-data`).

## Discipline-specific exhibits
- Experiment cell means with CIs; ANOVA effect-size tables.
- Mediation/moderated-mediation path diagrams with indirect-effect estimates and bootstrap CIs.
- Simple-slopes / Johnson–Neyman plots for interactions.
- SEM/CFA measurement-model tables (loadings, AVE/CR, fit indices).
- Content-analysis reliability tables (alpha by category) and category-frequency exhibits.

## 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). Communication Research is experiment- and survey-heavy; emphasize randomization inference, mediation done right, and family-wise corrections.

- **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)
- Significance stars with no effect size, SD, or interval (an APA-reporting failure at CR)
- A mediation table without bootstrap CIs, or an interaction with no simple-slopes display
- Cramming every robustness check into the main text (blows the page budget — use the supplement)
- Color-only encoding that fails in grayscale or for colorblind readers
- Exhibit numbers/values that don't match the deposited code output

## Exhibit pass for Communication Research

Treat this skill as an executable review pass, not a prose hint. First lock the communication process,
the measured constructs, the study design, and the inferential claim; then judge whether the
manuscript answers CR's real reader: a quantitatively trained communication scientist who weighs
theory, measurement validity, identification, and effect interpretation.

- **Do the pass:** For every table or figure, state the estimand or object, the sample/N, the
  uncertainty display, the effect size shown, and one sentence the exhibit proves.
- **Return a ledger:** give `claim / evidence / risk / manuscript location` rows so the next agent
  edits rather than rediscovers the issue.
- **Sibling guard:** *Journal of Communication*, *Human Communication Research*, *New Media &
  Society*. If a sibling owns the contribution, re-route before polishing format.
- **Stop condition:** do not give submission-ready advice until `resources/official-source-map.md`
  has been checked and the manuscript has one concrete fix for the largest venue-specific risk.

## Output format

```
【Main exhibit】what it shows + why a figure/table
【Self-contained?】title + labels + note + N/units present? [Y/N]
【Magnitude + uncertainty?】effect size + CI/SD shown (not stars only)? [Y/N]
【APA format?】numbering/titles/notes per APA? [Y/N]
【Accessible?】grayscale-legible + colorblind-safe? [Y/N]
【Article vs supplement】split decided, page-budget impact noted
【Reproducible?】generated by master script, matches materials? [Y/N]
【Next】commres-writing-style
```

## Supplementary resources

- [`../../resources/external_tools.md`](../../resources/external_tools.md) — plotting, mediation-diagram, and SEM/CFA packages
- [`../../resources/code/`](../../resources/code/) — table/figure export skeleton
- [`../../resources/official-source-map.md`](../../resources/official-source-map.md) — APA reporting and page limit