| 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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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).
- Measurement exhibits. For SEM/CFA, show the measurement model (loadings, fit indices); for
content analysis, report category frequencies and intercoder reliability by category.
- Accessible. Colorblind-safe palettes; legible in grayscale; no chartjunk, no 3D, no needless
color. Reviewers must parse it quickly.
- 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.
- 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. 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.
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
