Presenting results and presenting data graphically
Sources on presenting research results
Start here: Guidelines on reporting research - how to make sure you do a good job of reporting research results.
Mostly there appear to be guidelines in the medical, public health areas.
EQUATOR Network website https://www.equator-network.org the resource centre for good reporting of health research studies. The EQUATOR (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research) Network is an international initiative that seeks to improve the reliability and value of published health research literature by promoting transparent and accurate reporting and wider use of robust reporting guidelines.
This website links to other reporting guidelines.
Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives: By Organization This chart lists the major biomedical research reporting guidelines that provide advice for reporting research methods and findings. https://www.nlm.nih.gov/services/research_report_guide.html
Some specific guidelines
Spirit-Consort https://www.consort-spirit.org "guidelines offer a standard way to report trial protocols and findings. This helps authors to report their trials completely and transparently, providing readers with all the information they need to critically appraise, interpret and use the research."
PRISMA http://www.prisma-statement.org/ stands for Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. It is an evidence-based minimum set of items for reporting in systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
STROBE - Strengthening the Reporting of Observational studies in Epidemiology. https://www.strobe-statement.org/ STROBE stands for an international, collaborative initiative of epidemiologists, methodologists, statisticians, researchers and journal editors involved in the conduct and dissemination of observational studies in epidemiology.
Best Practices
Best Practices for Data Visualisation https://royal-statistical-society.github.io/datavisguide/ 2024. The overarching aim of this guide is to equip the reader with the fundamentals for creating data visualisations that are high quality, readable, effective at conveying information, accurate in display and interpretation, and fulfil their intended purpose.
Data Visualization: Best Practices https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-26-0005/892600052022001-eng.htm Release Feb 2023.
American Psychological Association Style Guide https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines has a section on Tables and Figures, including these:
Accessible Use of Color in Figures https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/tables-figures/colors
Figure Setup https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/tables-figures/figures
Table Setup https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/tables-figures/tables
American Medical Association Manual of Style. The AMA website is not free to view, but other sites show some of the AMA guides
AMA Style: The Basics for Pharmacy Writing: Visual Presentation of Data https://subjectguides.uwaterloo.ca/AMA/visualpresentationofdata
AMA Guide - 11th Edition: Paper Formatting https://library.south.edu/c.php?g=1025656&p=8087032
Tableau has lots of resources.
Best Practices for Designing Accessible Views https://help.tableau.com/current/pro/desktop/en-us/accessibility_best_practice.htm Tableau supports several controls to enable you to build accessible views. Views need to be:
Perceivable - Information and user interface components must be presented to users in a way that they can perceive. Consider including text alternatives and alternate ways to present the content.
Operable - The user interface components and navigation must be accessible to users from the different devices or methods that they use to interact with the view.
Understandable -The information presented in the view must be understandable to your users. For example, using clearly distinguishable names and labels for different elements shown in your view.
These are based on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
How to Meet WCAG (Quick Reference): A customizable quick reference to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2 requirements (success criteria) and techniques https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/quickref/?versions=2.1
What Is Data Visualization? Definition, Examples, And Learning Resources https://www.tableau.com/visualization/what-is-data-visualization This page also lists the 10 best visualization blogs https://www.tableau.com/learn/articles/best-data-visualization-blogs
Visual Best Practices https://help.tableau.com/current/blueprint/en-us/bp_visual_best_practices.htm This page is kind of an overview. Also see their guide Visual Analysis Best Practices: A Guidebook https://www.tableau.com/learn/whitepapers/tableau-visual-guidebook
More general guides (listed in reverse chronological order, newest on top)
The Urban Institute has a Data Visualization Style Guide https://urbaninstitute.github.io/graphics-styleguide/ As of 11/30/2025, this guide was last updated 8/27/2025. This is an internal guide, for all Urban Institute's visualizations. But looks like a lot of it could apply anywhere.
Data visualization, guide to principals and techniques https://libguides.gwu.edu/dataviz/overview As of 12/13/2025, this was last updated 9 December 2025. Has links to docs with best practices.
Data visualization, library guide https://guides.library.jhu.edu/datavisualization/home by Peter Lawson. As of 12/13/2025, this was last updated 1 April 2025. Some guiding points, and links to resources.
Ten Rules for Better Charts, Figures and Visuals https://www.lexjansen.com/cgi-bin/xsl_transform.php?x=sesug2024 by Kirk Paul Lafler, presented at the 2024 South East SAS Users Group conference. This presentation is at the bottom of the list.
American Statistical Association, Significance journal has 4 articles on Presenting Data the Significant Way.
Part Two https://academic.oup.com/jrssig/article/21/4/32/7730930 describes the Principles and elements of visualisations (although I don't agree with all of them).
Part Three https://academic.oup.com/jrssig/article/21/5/26/7803760 is mostly about accessibility
Part One https://academic.oup.com/jrssig/article/21/3/36/7686541 is about why we visualize and a brief history of visualization.
Part Four https://academic.oup.com/jrssig/article/22/1/24/7919566 describes the statistical software.
American Statistical Association, Statistical Graphics Section https://community.amstat.org/jointscsg-section/home has a special issue on data vizualization https://magazine.amstat.org/blog/2024/09/02/dataviz/
Utilizing tables, figures, charts and graphs to enhance the readability of a research paper. Divecha CA, Tullu MS, Karande S. J Postgrad Med. 2023 Jul-Sep;69(3):125-131. doi: 10.4103/jpgm.jpgm_387_23. PMID: 37395532; PMCID: PMC10394528. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10394528/
A lot of text describing how/when to use tables and graphs and how to format the tables and graphs, and all the info in them. Still well worth the read.
Guidance hub https://analysisfunction.civilservice.gov.uk/policy-store/ In particular two guides, about tables and charts, updated in 2022
Data visualization, table: https://analysisfunction.civilservice.gov.uk/policy-store/data-visualisation-tables/
Data visualization, charts: https://analysisfunction.civilservice.gov.uk/policy-store/data-visualisation-charts/
AEA has a blog stream about data visualization http://aea365.org/blog/category/data-visualization-and-reporting/ many contributions
The principles of presenting statistical results using figures. Park JH, Lee DK, Kang H, Kim JH, Nahm FS, Ahn E, In J, Kwak SG, Lim CY. Korean J Anesthesiol. 2022 Apr;75(2):139-150. doi: 10.4097/kja.21508. Epub 2022 Mar 3. PMID: 35016496; PMCID: PMC8980283. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8980283/
Equal Measure has this https://www.equalmeasure.org/data-viz-2/ Five First Steps to Data Visualization. A nice little guide, from March 2022.
Harvard Business School has a set of blogs about data visualization.
Bad Data Visualization: 5 Examples of Misleading Data, 2021. https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/bad-data-visualization
Types of Data Visualizations in Excel, what to keep in mind. 2021. https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/data-visualizations-in-excel
Top Data Visualization Tools for Business Professionals 2021 https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/data-visualization-tools
17 Data Visualization Techniques All Professionals Should Know, 2019, https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/data-visualization-techniques
Hehman E, Xie SY. Doing Better Data Visualization. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science. 2021;4(4). doi:10.1177/25152459211045334
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/25152459211045334
Principles of Effective Data Visualization. Stephen R. Midway. Patterns (N Y). 2020 Dec 11; 1(9): 100141. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7733875/
Exploring Data: graphs and numerical summaries . a class by The Open University's Learning Space. https://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/mathematics-statistics/exploring-data-graphs-and-numerical-summaries/content-section-0?active-tab=description-tab This is the class for 2018. If this link doesn't work , go to the open learn home page https://www.open.edu/openlearn/ and search by title of this class.
Statistical data presentation. Junyong In and Sangseok Lee. Korean J Anesthesiol. 2017 Jun; 70(3): 267–276. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5453888/ Describes various types of tables, graphs, and mentions some strengths and challenges.
CDC's Brief 12 https://www.cdc.gov/healthy-youth/php/program-evaluation/pdf/brief12.pdf Using Graphs and Charts to Illustrate Quantitative Data. Updated 2018
Statistics: Power from data. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/edu/power-pouvoir/toc-tdm/5214718-eng.htm has a section describing presenting data https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/edu/power-pouvoir/ch9/5214821-eng.htm showing examples of different types of graphs. 2021
Rougier NP, Droettboom M, Bourne PE (2014) Ten Simple Rules for Better Figures. PLoS Comput Biol 10(9): e1003833. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003833 https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003833
Presenting data in tables and charts. Rodrigo Pereira Duquia, João Luiz Bastos, Renan Rangel Bonamigo, David Alejandro González-Chica, and Jeovany Martínez-Mesa. An Bras Dermatol. 2014 Mar-Apr; 89(2): 280–285. doi: 10.1590/abd1806-4841.20143388. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4008059/
Data Visualization for Human Perception https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/data-visualization-for-human-perception by David Few. About effective presentation of data, and why these things are effective. In the book "The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd Ed.", from the Interaction Design Foundation. no date given.
Graphing sociology https://thesocietypages.org/graphicsociology/ the author of this page, Laura Noren, presents graphs, charts or tables and analyzes why they work or don't work. June 2017
Census Bureau has examples of data visualizations, and infographics https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations.html
Presenting data. https://www.qgso.qld.gov.au/about-statistics/presenting-data guidance on presenting statistical information. Guide to tables, and guide to charts. 2015. From Queensland Government
Making data meaningful https://unece.org/statistics/making-data-meaningful from the UN Economic Commission of Europe. How to write, present and communicate about data. 2009
Gallery of Data Visualization: The Best and Worst of Statistical Graphics https://www.datavis.ca/gallery/ By Michael Friendly. Looks like last updated in 2007.
Guidelines for Effective Data Presentations https://dhsprogram.com/publications/publication-od41-other-documents.cfm 2004
Books: I list these books too, because these books are so highly recommended.
books by Edward Tufte, especially
Envisioning information, graphics press, 1990
the visual display of quantitative information, graphics press, 1987
books by William Cleveland, especially
visualizing data , hobart press, 1993
the elements of graphing data, CRC press, 1994
Sites about general presentation tips:
Andrew Gelman, at Columbia http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/ has this presentation on presenting graphics. 2012
Prepare charts on line
Tableau public https://public.tableau.com/app/discover says you can make charts for free
HOW TO PREPARE REPORTS
Plain Language.gov https://plainlanguage.gov from the US Govt, especially see the guidelines
https://plainlanguage.gov/guidelines/ with sections like short sections, useful headings, etc.
Writing research papers http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~bioslabs/tools/report/reportform.html general guide for biostat reports, but still useful.
MISC
Visual Facilitation Cookbook. https://www.salto-youth.net/tools/toolbox/tool/visual-facilitation-cookbook.1897/ and at the National Library of Estonia https://www.digar.ee/arhiiv/en/books/85392 The tool was created by Torben Grocholl, Deniss Jershov and Kati Orav. Not exactly about presenting statistical data, but interesting anyway. "We have put together a number of tools, templates, exercises and games which we use in our training activities and which were proven to be interesting, engaging and useful for facilitators and learners in different settings. We have also reached out to colleagues, friends and former participants of our training courses and workshops, asking for their favourite tools and visual approaches in their professional context. You will find them as practical cases, examples and tools throughout this book."
last verified and updated 6/13/2025.