Making Journal-Quality TablesNola du Toit

Center for Family and Demographic Research

Spring 2008

Why make tables into journal-quality tables?

Easier to read

Standard way of presenting findings

Reader does not have to struggle to find information

A presentation of your hard work

Makes your paper (and you) look professional

Example of a bad table….

SexFem ale 93% Single 38%M ale 7% Dating 32%

Cohabiting 11%Race/Ethnicity Married 19%

African American 47%White 29% Multiple Partner Fertility* Hispanic 22% Mul t ipl e Par t ner Fer t i l i t y 44%Native American 2% Singl e Par t ner Fer t i l i t y 56%

Age Educational AttainmentMean Age 36 Less than or some High School 25Age Range 18-68 High School Graduate 18

18-19 years old 3% Some College/Trade School 46 20-24 years old 11% College Graduate 22 25-34 years old 38%

35- 44 years old 18% Employment 45 and older 30% Unemployed 70%

Employed (Full- and Part-time) 30%

Think about…

Who is your audience?

What are you presenting?

Who is your audience?

Class paper

Still has to look professional

Tip: Create a shell that you can use for all future work

Who is your audience?

Conference presentations

Make a table to save space

Present only most important results

Who is your audience?

Journal submission

Specific to journals

Check their websites

Manuscript submission guidelines

Look at recent publications

Examples of Journal Preferences

American Sociological Review e.g. Standard errors, deviations, etc in parentheses under

coefficients, etc…

Criminology e.g. Table not in text, only space-holder where table would

be, etc…

Think about…

What are you presenting?

Descriptive results

Bivariate, multivariate, etc

Only significant results

Better in graph form?

What all tables should have…

Title

Reference e.g. Table 1a., Table 13….

Be consistent! With period/without period in title Font Names of variables, etc Decimals all in line

What all tables should NOT have…

Vertical lines

Bold or italic lettering in the body Only okay for titles

Too many numbers behind decimal Usually only require two numbers behind the decimal Include the 0

0.98 not .984357

Example of a good table….

Item EstimatedPositive and Significant

Negative and Significant

Demographic Variables for HeadMale 85 74 11Age 85 85 0

Age Squareda 85 0 85Head's Education

Completed primary or incomplete secondary 76 76 0Completed secondary or higher 60 60 0Completed secondary 19 19 0Higher 20 20 0Unknown 12 12 0

OtherHousehold has electricity 61 61 0Residence in a small city 71 60 11Residence in a capital or large city 82 74 7

Table 4. Summary of γ, the Effects of Determinants X on the Living-Standards Factor

a The living-standards factor was estimated to increase with the head's age up to age 59.7, which is the average "turning point" among all the estimated models.

Making the table…

Getting data into Excel

By hand

Or the easy way

Formatting the table

Getting the table into Word

Getting SAS results into Excel

Use HTML output

Tools options preferences results create HTML (check box) select a folder for saving select style minimal

Run SAS

HTML page opens

Select all copy paste into Excel

OR right-click on file choose to open with Excel

Getting Stata results into Excel

Run Stata

Highlight table

Right click

Select copy table or copy table as HTML Paste in Excel

Copy table Copy table as HTML

Formatting your tables in Excel

Select cells and use toolbar

or

Select cells right click select format cells

Just a few examples…

Formatting numbers on your table

Right-click on table select format cells

Number, percentages

Decimal places

Custom placeholders # for an insignificant zero 0 for leading with a zero ? for lining up decimals

0.900 vs. .9

Merging headers

To make the headers cover more than one column

Highlight cells click on merge

Adding borders

Highlight cells click on tables icon

Adding borders

Highlight cells

right-click on cells

select format cells

select border

select border type,

color, and placement

Getting your table into Word Highlight table right-click select copy Open word document Find location in word document Click on file

select paste special

select picture

(enhanced metafile)

Formatting your table in Word

To change the size, layout, etc of table in Word

Right click on table

select format picture

Change size, placement,

etc…

Helpful sites

Criminology

http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/submit.asp?ref=0011-1384

JMF

http://oregonstate.edu/%7Eacock/tables/

AJS

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/page/AJS/instruct.html

The CFDR can help!

Thanks to Meredith, Aurea, and Heidi Thanks to David for his input