29 Checklist for graphics in reports
- Use graphics to reinforce, supplement, or clarify arguments, especially when using data.
- Use graphics appropriate to your audience, subject, and purpose.
- Discuss graphics in the text just preceding the graphic. Don’t insert a graphic in your report unexplained. Orient readers to the graphic; explain its basic meaning in introductory and follow-up sentences before and after your graphic.
- Avoid placing graphics on pages by themselves; ideally, no visual should take up more than one-third of any page in your report.
- Use figure numbers and titles for graphics. Additionally, include identifying detail within the graphics such as illustration labels, axis labels, keys, and so on.
- Make sure graphics fit within normal margins. Leave at least one blank line above and below graphics.
- Place graphics as near to the point in the text where they are relevant as is reasonable. However, if a graphic does not fit properly on one page, indicate that it appears on the next page and put it at the top of the next, continuing with regular text on the preceding page.
- Cite all images that you create, or which is created by another author, from another source. Do this in your introductory sentences before the visual appears, as well as include a citation at the bottom of the visual.
