A manual for writers of research papers, theses, and dissertations, Ninth edition - Kate L. Turabian 2018
General issues
Tables and figures
Style
26.1 General Issues
26.1.1 Position in the Text
26.1.2 Size
26.1.3 Source Lines
26.2 Tables
26.2.1 Table Structure
26.2.2 Table Numbers and Titles
26.2.3 Rules
26.2.4 Column Heads
26.2.5 The Stub
26.2.6 The Body of a Table
26.2.7 Footnotes
26.3 Figures
26.3.1 Charts and Graphs
26.3.2 Figure Numbers and Captions
Many research papers use tables and figures to present data. Tables are grids consisting of columns and rows that present numerical or verbal facts by categories. Figures include charts, graphs, diagrams, photographs, maps, musical examples, drawings, and other images. All these types of tabular and nontextual materials are collectively referred to as illustrations (a term sometimes used interchangeably with figures) or graphics.
When you have data that could be conveyed in a table or figure, your first task is to choose the most effective of these formats; some kinds of data are better represented in a table, some in a chart, others in a graph. Your choice will affect how your readers respond to your data. These are rhetorical issues, discussed in chapter 8. This chapter focuses on how to construct the particular form you choose, looking specifically at tables and two types of figures—charts and graphs.
Most tables, charts, and graphs are created with software. You cannot rely on software, however, to select the most effective format or to generate such items in the correct style, nor will software ensure logical or formal consistency. Expect to change some default settings before creating tables, charts, and graphs and to fine-tune these items once they are produced.
Your department or university may have specific requirements for formatting tables and figures, usually available from the office of theses and dissertations. If you are writing a class paper, check with your instructor for any special requirements. Review these requirements before you prepare your paper. They take precedence over the guidelines suggested here. For style guides in various disciplines, see the bibliography.
For more information on creating and formatting tables and figures and inserting them into your paper, see A.3.1.
26.1 General Issues
There are several issues common to the presentation of tables and figures in papers.
26.1.1 Position in the Text
Normally you should place a table or figure immediately after the paragraph in which you first mention it. Sometimes, however, such placement will cause a short table to break unnecessarily across the page or a figure to jump to the top of the next page, leaving more than a few lines of white space at the bottom of the previous page. To prevent either of these from happening, you may (a) place the table or figure farther along in the text, as long as it remains within a page of its first mention, or (b) place the table or figure just before the first mention, as long as it appears on the same page as the mention. (Such adjustments are best made after the text of your paper is final.)
You may group smaller tables or figures on a page, as long as they are clearly distinct from one another. Grouped tables generally retain their own titles (see 26.2.2). If grouped figures are closely related, give them a single number and a general caption; otherwise use separate numbers and captions (see 26.3.2). (Depending on your local guidelines, you may instead group tables and figures together in a section labeled Illustrations in the back matter of your paper; see A.2.3.1.)
If a table or figure is only marginally relevant to your topic, or if it is too large to put in the text, put it in an appendix in the back matter of your paper (see A.2.3).
For more information on inserting tables and figures into your paper, see A.3.1.
26.1.2 Size
Whenever you can, format tables and figures to fit on one page in normal, or portrait, orientation. If they do not fit, try shortening long column heads or abbreviating repeated terms.
If you cannot make a table or figure fit on a page, you have several options.
✵ ▪ Landscape. If a table or figure is too wide for a page, turn it ninety degrees so that the left side is at the bottom of the page; this orientation is called landscape or broadside. Do not put any of your main text on a page containing a landscape table or figure. Set the table title or figure caption in either landscape or portrait orientation. See figure A.13 for an example. (You may need to convert a table into an image file in order to rotate it.)
✵ ▪ Side by side. If a table is longer than a page but less than half a page wide, break it in half and position the two halves side by side in one table on the same page. Separate the two halves with a vertical rule, and include the column heads on both sides.
✵ ▪ Multiple pages. If a table or figure is too long to fit on a single page in portrait orientation or too wide to fit in landscape, divide it between two (or more) pages. For tables, repeat the stub column and all column heads (see 26.2) on every page. Omit the bottom rule on all pages except the last.
✵ ▪ Reduction. If the figure is a photograph or other image, consider reducing it. Consult your local guidelines for any requirements related to resolution, scaling, cropping, and other parameters.
✵ ▪ Separate items. If none of the above solutions is appropriate, consider presenting the data in two or more separate tables or figures.
✵ ▪ Appendix. If the table or figure consists of supplementary material that cannot be presented in print form, such as a large data set or a multimedia file, treat it as an appendix, as described in A.2.3.
26.1.3 Source Lines
You must acknowledge the sources of any data you use in tables and figures that you did not collect yourself. You must do this even if you present the data in a new form—for example, you create a graph based on data originally published in a table, add fresh data to a table from another source, or combine data from multiple sources by meta-analysis.
Treat a source line as a footnote to a table (see 26.2.7) or as part of a caption for a figure (see 26.3.2). For tables, introduce the source line with the word Source(s) (capitalized, in italics, followed by a colon). If the source line runs onto more than one line, the runovers should be flush left, single-spaced. End a source line with a period.
If you are following notes style for your citations, cite the source as in a full note (see chapter 16), including the original table or figure number or the page number from which you took the data. Unless you cite this source elsewhere in your paper, you need not include it in your bibliography.
Source: Data from David Halle, Inside Culture: Art and Class in the American Home (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), table 2.
Sources: Data from Richard H. Adams Jr., “Remittances, Investment, and Rural Asset Accumulation in Pakistan,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 47, no. 1 (1998): 155—73; David Bevan, Paul Collier, and Jan Gunning, Peasants and Government: An Economic Analysis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 125—28.
If you are following author-date style for your citations, cite the source as in a parenthetical citation (minus the parentheses) and include full bibliographical information about it in your reference list (see chapter 18).
Source: Data from Halle 1993, table 2.
Sources: Data from Adams 1998, 155—73; Bevan, Collier, and Gunning 1989, 125—28.
If you have adapted the data in any way from what is presented in the original source, include the phrase adapted from in the source line, as shown in tables 26.1 and 26.3.
For photographs, maps, and other figures that you did not create yourself, include an acknowledgment of the creator in place of a source line.
✵ Map by Gerald F. Pyle.
✵ Photograph by James L. Ballard.
If your dissertation will be submitted to an external dissertation repository, you may also need to obtain formal permission to reproduce tables or figures protected by copyright. See chapter 4 of The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition (2017). If you need to include credit lines in connection with such permissions, see CMOS 3.29—37 (figures) and 3.77 (tables).