In academic writing, clarity isn’t just desirable, it’s also essential. Researchers are expected to communicate their findings with precision, and often, the most effective way to do that is through figures. Charts, graphs, diagrams, and images aren’t merely supporting materials but are fundamental core components of the argument.
Whether we’re presenting clinical trial results, statistical analyses, historical trends, or experimental setups, visual data plays a key role. A well-designed figure can do what paragraphs of prose often can’t: convey complexity with simplicity and evidence with impact.
A strong figure cuts through the noise by showing what needs to be seen – the shape of the data, the story behind the results – without asking the reader to dig.
Why Figures Matter in Research
Helping the Reader See More Clearly
Most people process visual information far more efficiently than text. The brain is naturally tuned to spot patterns, shapes, and outliers. Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has shown that the human brain can identify images seen for as little as 13 milliseconds [1]. This finding underlines the brain’s remarkable speed in processing visual stimuli.
However, rapid recognition isn’t just about speed; it’s also about staying power. The ‘picture superiority effect’ – how humans remember images better than text and can more easily and reliably recall them – is a well-documented phenomenon in cognitive psychology [2]. Therefore, when a reader remembers a study’s figure more vividly than its written conclusion, the figure’s design works as intended.
Reducing Mental Fatigue
We all know that research papers can be dense. Tables are typically full of numbers or heavily technical descriptions, which can put pressure on a reader’s concentration. A comprehensive study analysing over 700,000 scientific abstracts published between 1881 and 2015 found a steady decline in readability. This trend is attributed to the growing use of general scientific jargon and complex sentence structures, making texts harder to comprehend [3].
Well-structured visuals lift that load. They give the brain something to grasp quickly, something to anchor the text around.
Not only that, but figures benefit more than just researchers within the field. They help make complex findings understandable to policymakers, journalists, collaborators in other disciplines, and the public.
Figures as Evidence: Visual Data as Argument
When Seeing Becomes Believing
Well-chosen figures don’t just illustrate a point – they make the point. A scatterplot showing the correlation between two variables can be more convincing than a paragraph of explanation. Likewise, a timeline showing a policy intervention and its outcomes can settle a debate.
Visual evidence makes it harder to obscure poor methodology or cherry-picked data. A full dataset, clearly visualised, invites scrutiny and builds confidence in the findings. A study titled ‘Visualization Guardrails: Designing Interventions Against Cherry-Picking’ highlights that cherry-picking (selectively presenting data to support a specific argument) is a common issue in data interpretation. The study emphasises that comprehensive visualisations can mitigate this by providing a fuller context, making it more challenging to misrepresent data [4].
Visual figures have long shaped public and scientific understanding. Florence Nightingale’s ‘Coxcomb’ diagrams (a kind of polar area chart) were instrumental in persuading the British government to reform sanitation practices during the Crimean War [5]. A century later, the now-ubiquitous S-shaped COVID-19 curve drove home the concept of ‘flattening the curve’ more powerfully than any news article.
Essential for Replication
In the field of research, reproducibility is a preordained cornerstone of credible research. Flowcharts, apparatus diagrams, and data plots give fellow researchers the tools they need to repeat a study or test a method. In open science models, figures are often shared independently of the paper and are available as editable files or live dashboards for re-analysis.
Clarity makes visual evidence not just persuasive but testable, which is exactly what the next step in research demands.
Figures in Peer Review and Publication
Early Impressions Matter
Reviewers often look at the figures before reading the abstract. If they can understand our core findings at a glance, we’ve already made their job easier, and our paper is more likely to be well-received.
Poor figures, on the other hand, raise red flags. A lack of clarity, sloppy labelling, or inconsistent styles suggest a rushed or careless approach.
Boosting Reach and Citations
Visually strong papers are more likely to be shared online, used in teaching, cited in talks, and picked up by non-specialist media. A figure can be the thing people remember long after they’ve forgotten the wording of our abstract.
Figures as Translational Tools Across Disciplines
As research becomes increasingly interdisciplinary, figures are also essential tools for translation.
A clear visual can bridge gaps in terminology, theory, or method. A well-labelled diagram might help a clinician grasp an epidemiological model or allow a policymaker to interpret a biochemical process without needing to read the full text.
In a 2020 global survey by Elsevier, over 60% of researchers said they rely on figures to interpret studies outside their own field [6]. Visual clarity is not just a stylistic choice but a point of access. For collaborators working across disciplines—or even across borders—a good figure can make the difference between shared understanding and silent confusion.
Teaching Through Seeing
Figures don’t just live in journals. Once published, they often find a second life in classrooms, lecture halls, and learning platforms. A well-made visual can clarify a concept in seconds, whereas text alone might take paragraphs or be misread entirely. Educators routinely draw on published figures to explain mechanisms, highlight trends, or unpack case studies.
For students stepping into a new discipline, a visual summary can offer a foothold – something to anchor their understanding before the complexity sets in. When a figure is well-labelled, accessible, and thoughtfully constructed, it becomes more than a data point; it becomes a teaching tool, passed from researcher to reader, then teacher to student.
Final thought…
Figures aren’t an add-on. They’re not the ‘nice-to-haves’ at the end of a paper. Instead, they’re part of the language of research and are essential to how ideas are explained, tested, and remembered.
When figures are done well, they make complex work clearer, sharper, and more trustworthy. They help the reader see what the researcher sees and invite them to look more closely.
In the academic publishing world, where scrutiny is high, a robust figure isn’t just a matter of design… it’s a mark of professional care and work that’s ready to be seen.
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References
[1] Abreu, R. L. D., Pimenta, T. C., & Spadoti, D. H. (2017). Self-tuning capacitance for impedance matching in wireless power transfer devices. https://doi.org/10.1109/icm.2017.8268849
[2] Paivio, A. (1991). Dual coding theory: Retrospect and current status. Canadian Journal of Psychology
[3] Pontus Plavén-Sigray, Granville James Matheson, Björn Christian Schiffler, William Hedley Thompson (2017) Research: The readability of scientific texts is decreasing over time eLife 6:e27725 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.27725
[4] McDonald, L. (2015). Florence Nightingale and her diagrams. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 108(7), 250–251. https://doi.org/10.1177/0141076815592415
[5] Lis, K., Zhi, Q., & Meyer, M. (2024). Visualization Guardrails: Designing Interventions Against Cherry-Picking. SCI Institute, University of Utah. https://www.sci.utah.edu/publications/Lis2024a/preprint_2024_guardrails.pdf
[6] Elsevier (2020). Research Futures: A report exploring the future of research and how it will be conducted. https://www.elsevier.com/connect/research-futures-report