---
name: jop-tables-figures
description: Use when designing tables and figures for a The Journal of Politics (JOP) manuscript. JOP counts pages (not words) and includes tables and figures in the page limit, so exhibits must be self-contained, legible, regenerated by code, and economical with space. Designs exhibits; it does not run analyses.
---

# Tables & Figures (jop-tables-figures)

At JOP, exhibits compete directly for **pages**: tables and figures **count toward** the 35-page
(Research Article) or 10-page (Short Article) limit. Every exhibit must earn its space, stand on its own,
and be **regenerated by the deposited code** so the replication analyst's re-run matches the printed page.

## When to trigger

- Designing or revising the main tables and figures
- A reviewer found an exhibit unclear, overcrowded, or redundant
- The paper is over the page budget and exhibits are the obvious place to cut
- Deciding which exhibits belong in the main text vs the Online Appendix

## Principles

- **Self-contained.** Title, units, N, and notes let the exhibit be read without the text. Define
  abbreviations and estimators in the note.
- **Show the quantity of interest.** Prefer plots of marginal effects, predicted probabilities, or
  coefficients with CIs over dense coefficient dumps a general reader cannot parse.
- **Legible in print and grayscale.** Colorblind-safe palettes; distinguishable line/point styles;
  vector output (PDF/EPS).
- **One job per exhibit.** If a table tries to do three things, split it or move two to the appendix.

## Manage the page budget

- Tables and figures are part of the page count — a single sprawling table can cost a full page.
- Keep **main-text exhibits to the few that carry the argument**; move balance tables, full regression
  grids, and secondary plots to the **Online Appendix (≤ 25 pp)**, which is excluded from the 35.
- A Short Article rarely needs more than one or two exhibits — choose the decisive one.
- Prefer compact, well-designed tables over wide landscape monsters that eat space and break in print.

## Reproducibility of exhibits

- Every table/figure is **produced by a script**, not hand-edited; the numbers must match the text and
  the deposited package.
- Name the script that generates each exhibit in the readme so the JOP analyst can map exhibit → code.
- Re-run end-to-end before submission so figure files are current.

## Anti-patterns

- A coefficient dump where a marginal-effects plot would communicate the result
- Exhibits illegible in grayscale or at print size
- Hand-tuned final figures the code cannot regenerate (fails the replication check)
- Filling the main text with exhibits and blowing the page budget when the appendix exists

## Worked micro-example (illustrative)

The AVR-turnout author's first draft puts a six-column regression table in the main text — full
coefficients, two pages of print. A referee cannot read the effect off it and the page cost is steep. The
fix replaces it with one marginal-effects figure: predicted turnout by adoption status with 95% CIs,
colorblind-safe, vector, self-contained note giving N and the estimator. It reads in grayscale and the
coefficient table moves to the appendix.

## Referee pushback patterns and the JOP fix

- *"I cannot read the effect off this table."* Replace the coefficient dump with a marginal-effects or
  predicted-probability plot showing the quantity of interest with uncertainty.
- *"The exhibits push the paper over length."* Keep only the few that carry the argument in the main text;
  move balance tables and full grids to the appendix.


## Exhibit pass for Journal of Politics

Treat this skill as an executable review pass, not a prose hint. First lock the political mechanism, evidence design, and scope condition; then judge whether the current manuscript answers the venue's real reader: political-science reviewers who want theory, identification or formal logic, and generalizable political implications in balance.

- **Do the pass:** For every table or figure, state the estimand or object, sample or case base, uncertainty display, and one sentence the exhibit proves for the venue audience.
- **Return a ledger:** give `claim / evidence / risk / manuscript location` rows, so the next agent can edit rather than rediscover the issue.
- **Sibling guard:** compare against APSR for field-wide political science, AJPS for design-heavy empirical work, World Politics for comparative/international politics; if a sibling owns the contribution, recommend re-routing before polishing format.
- **Stop condition:** do not give submission-ready advice until the pack's `resources/official-source-map.md` has been checked for volatile rules and the manuscript has one concrete fix for the largest venue-specific risk.

## Output format

```
【Exhibit list】main-text vs appendix split
【Each exhibit】self-contained? shows quantity of interest? [Y/N]
【Legibility】grayscale/colorblind-safe, vector output? [Y/N]
【Reproducible】generated by named script, matches text? [Y/N]
【Page cost】main-text exhibits within budget? [Y/N]
【Next】jop-writing-style
```

## Supplementary resources

- [`../../resources/external_tools.md`](../../resources/external_tools.md) — plotting and exhibit-export tooling (coefplot, ggplot2, marginaleffects, sf/tmap)
- [`../../resources/official-source-map.md`](../../resources/official-source-map.md) — JOP page-limit rules (exhibits count toward the limit)