---
name: asr-tables-figures
description: Use when building tables and figures for an American Sociological Review (ASR) manuscript. ASR excludes tables and figures from the 15,000-word count but still expects them to be clear, self-contained, and ASA-formatted. Designs exhibits; it does not run the analysis.
---

# Tables & Figures (asr-tables-figures)

Exhibits are where a masked reviewer checks whether the result is real. ASR **excludes tables and
figures from the 15,000-word limit** (text, references, and footnotes count) — so you are not penalized
for a clear exhibit, but it must earn its place and stand on its own.

## When to trigger

- Designing the main results table/figure or a key descriptive exhibit
- Deciding what belongs in the article vs. supplementary materials
- A reviewer found an exhibit unclear, mislabeled, or not self-contained
- Presenting qualitative or comparative-historical evidence in tabular/visual form

## Principles

1. **Self-contained.** Title, row/column labels, and a complete note make each exhibit intelligible
   alone. State the sample, N, units, weighting, and what the estimate is.
2. **Show magnitude and uncertainty.** Effect sizes and intervals — not stars alone. Coefficient and
   marginal-effects plots often beat dense coefficient walls.
3. **Sociology-specific exhibits.** Mobility/transition tables and flow diagrams; survival curves and
   Lexis/age-period-cohort surfaces for demography; network graphs; sequence-analysis chronograms;
   **evidence tables** linking claims to sources for comparative-historical/ethnographic work.
4. **Accessible.** Colorblind-safe palettes; legible in grayscale; no chartjunk or 3D.
5. **Reproducible.** Generated by the master script (quantitative) so numbers match shared materials;
   for qualitative exhibits, excerpts must be faithful to the coded data.

## Format

- Follow the **ASA Style Guide** for table/figure formatting and notes.
- Double-spaced manuscript, Times New Roman 12 pt; place tables/figures per the guidelines.
- Keep identifying information out of exhibits (masked review).

## Anti-patterns

- Tables that require the prose to be intelligible (not self-contained)
- Significance stars with no effect size or interval
- Decorative figures that add no evidence
- Color-only encoding that fails in grayscale or for colorblind readers
- Quantitative exhibit values that don't match the analysis script

## Output format

```
【Main exhibit】what it shows + why a table/figure
【Self-contained?】title + labels + note + N/units/weights present? [Y/N]
【Magnitude + uncertainty shown?】[Y/N]
【Accessible?】grayscale-legible + colorblind-safe? [Y/N]
【Reproducible / faithful?】matches script or coded data? [Y/N]
【Next】asr-writing-style
```

## Supplementary resources

- [`../../resources/external_tools.md`](../../resources/external_tools.md) — plotting, demography, and network visualization tools
- [`../../resources/official-source-map.md`](../../resources/official-source-map.md) — word-count rule (tables/figures excluded) and ASA Style Guide