Jumbled charts and misleading graphs — illustrations in a paper can go wrong in many ways. Now, a treatise that attempts to rescue science from bad figures has been getting rave reviews on social media (N. P. Rougier et al. PLoS Comput. Biol. 10, e1003833;; 2014).
Using original illustrations — some elegant, some clunky — to prove key points, 'Ten simple rules for better figures' tries to steer researchers away from common pitfalls. The first tip: know your audience. A stripped-down graph that might make sense to your closest colleagues could prove baffling to anyone else. Many researchers on social media were grateful for the advice. Andrew Jackson, an evolutionary ecologist at Trinity College Dublin, tweeted: “Magic. Using that in lectures for sure. Incoming students take note!” See go.nature.com/fqlyer for more.
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How to draw perfect figures. Nature 513, 463 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/513463e
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/513463e