Tables and Figures

Recently an author asked me "how many tables and figures should I have in my paper?" This is another of those tough questions for which it is hard to provide a firm rule. The APA manual states that you should "limit the content of your tables to essential materials" (section 5.07). This means you should only include information that is cumbersome or confusing if written in text. A couple of examples are demographics and correlation tables, which are often clearer in table format than explained in text. Below is an example of a demographics table from a qualitative study (Clark, 2013).

Table 1. Summary of Demographics

Participants	Gender	Age	Time attending community college
Participant 1	Female	62	3 years
Participant 2	Female	57	1 online class
Participant 3	Female	55	4 classes
Participant 4	Female	54	2 years
Participant 5	Male	50	2.5 years
Participant 6	Female	52	3 years
Participant 7	Male	51	1 year
Participant 8	Female	59	4 years
Participant 9	Female	59	3 years
Participant10	Female	62	7 years
Participant11	Male	58	2 years

Note. The mean age of the participants was 56.2 years.

What about figures (graphs)? These should be used very sparingly. The only time I recommend the use of a figure is for a quantitative study that had an interaction effect, it is typically easier to understand if presented in a graph. Here is an example from Stadtlander, Giles and Sickel (2013, p.128).

As shown in Figure 1, there was an interaction effect (F [1, 14] = 13.25, p < .01), whereby the lab group showed a greater knowledge gain over the four periods as compared to the comparison group.

Figure 1: Research Knowledge Test Scores Interaction Effect for Lab and Comparison Students

Clark, L. (2013). Older Adult Community College Students' Perceptions of Readiness for Learning Online. Walden University Doctoral Dissertation. 

Stadtlander, L., Giles, M. & Sickel, A. (2013).  The Virtual Research Lab: Research Outcomes Expectations, Research Knowledge, and the Graduate Student Experience. Journal of Educational Research and Practice, 3(1), 120-138.