Writing Guide: Tables & Figures

Numbers and data are not just for the sciences, but can be used in the humanities and religious studies.  When data is presented in tables or charts, it can be an effective way to make an argument.  Consider a sentence like:

Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote many times to federal government officials, but they usually did not take his recommendations.

Not only does such a sentence require evidence in the form of examples and citations, its vagueness makes it a weak argument.  "Many," for example, can mean a lot of things; it therefore does not tell the reader too much.  Compare this general argument to a more precise one:

Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote to President Kennedy at least six times in the first two years of his term, but the White House usually would not or decided that it could not take King’s recommendations.*

          *Martin Luther King, Jr., The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., vol. VII, To Save the Soul of America: January 1961-August 1962, ed. Tenisha Armstrong (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 171-172, 175, 349-350, 428-429, 567-568, 605-607.

While this is better, the reader could benefit from an explanation of these six instances.  While these could be listed, the quantitative quality of the evidence lends itself to being presented in a Table:

Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote to President Kennedy at least six times in the first two years of his term, but the White House usually would not or decided that it could not take King’s recommendations (see Table 1).

The following are the main directions for formatting tables and figures from Chapter 26 of Turabian (Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 9th ed., ed. Wayne C. Booth, et al. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), 370-382).

• Important figures that are necessary for presenting your evidence should be put in the body of your work right after they are mentioned
• When possible, figures and tables should be kept on a single page
• Figures that are not entirely necessary for the at-hand argument or are too large should be put at the end as an appendix
• Titles for tables and figures should begin with "Table #" or "Figure #" and should go above the table/figure
• Figures and tables should be titled, cited, and worded so that the reader can understand the significance of the information just by reading it.  This means:
  • The title for the figure should not be too general, but instead descriptive of the contents of the figure
  • Necessary axes, data points, etc., should also be descriptive
  • All the information needs to be cited in full at below the figure (see the example to the left)
• If you are reproducing an image, particularly for a thesis, dissertation, or other published work, note that you will have to obtain permission to do so from the copyright holder!