Researchers compile their academic life’s work into scholarly publications, but many may not fully understand each of the components needed to create a viable reference book project. eContent Pro presents a blog series “Understanding the Inner Workings of a Reference Book” to explain the importance of each part of a reference book and some tips on how to effectively secure them. The blog series will include pieces on Titles, Front Matter, Keywords, Abstracts, Citations, Figures, Indices, and Back Cover Text. To discover the importance of properly utilizing figures in your scholarly journal, read the following article.
When writing a reference book, authors must remember the importance of including figures. As most of the inner workings of a reference book, figures appeal to the reader and add value to the overall work. Figures are often used in almost every published book chapter or journal article and there’s many reasons why authors use figures in their scholarly work.
Why Use Figures?
Authors trying to publish their work must value representing their research findings in the best way possible. Often, authors will display their findings in some sort of figure ranging from tables to charts to graphs to everything in-between. It’s important for an author to present detailed information to the reader that allows them to digest the research in a simple manner. Countless hours are spent on discovering research findings and it’s the focal point of the reference book to accurately display this information to the audience. Authors should emphasize creating clear and informative titles of the data presented in the figures to help the audience better understand what they’re reading.
Where to Include Figures?
An author should display figures in their reference books near the sections that discuss the research results. Authors can use the text to reference the figures or charts presented in the book. Readers can then follow the research results as explained by referring to the figure in the text. Reference the figures by numbers to ensure the information the reader is consuming is paired with the proper data.
Impact of Figures
Visual elements such as figures, tables, and charts enhance the quality of the reference book. Properly using figures can catch the reader’s attention while saving them time by clearly seeing the research presented in a clean graphic. The biggest impact figures can provide besides enhancing the quality of a reference book is communicating accurate information to the reader. Figures allows the author to organize collected information in a clear and summarized manner that aids the reader’s experience. Scholarly research can be difficult to present to an audience while being clear, but visual elements allow authors to do so in a simple fashion.
Publishers demand the highest quality visual elements in order to be published in reference books as they add great value to the overall book. Authors may struggle with meeting such strict guidelines when it regards visual elements, but eContent Pro can help. The figure, table, chart, and equation conversions service from eContent Pro will help you meet the requirements that publications and/or publishing houses look for when examining visual elements within your work, such as DPI (dots per inch), clarity, and many other items that will make your images clearer and much better representations of your research.
