It depends of type of work and we must only write the most important/relevant materials in the limited pages allowed by journals. It is a tough decision to cut down.

I avoid providing tables for every analysis which I have done and only provide tables which add to quality of the article. For instance, I generally calculate correlation matrix of input variables in the preliminary analysis, but I had never reported a table presenting the correlation matrix.

Tables are used when we want to compare different values/statistics described in the article. Simple results can be stated in the text. All tables should be referred to in the manuscript and their relevance to the article should also be described in the following paragraphs. Some journals impose restrictions on number of tables used in the article.

Recently, I decide to include only 3 tables, showing my reliability values as compared to the original values obtained by the previous authors, a compiled table of important means and SD's, and a Pearson correlation table.  I discussed results of 4 Levene's tests and t-tests in the text more fully. For the tables that I included, I didn't discuss everything but just highlighted the important points. I tried my best to save space. ( How would you would present your data.)

It depends of type of work and we must only write the most important/relevant materials in the limited pages allowed by journals. It is a tough decision to cut down.

I avoid providing tables for every analysis which I have done and only provide tables which add to quality of the article. For instance, I generally calculate correlation matrix of input variables in the preliminary analysis, but I had never reported a table presenting the correlation matrix.

Tables are used when we want to compare different values/statistics described in the article. Simple results can be stated in the text. All tables should be referred to in the manuscript and their relevance to the article should also be described in the following paragraphs. Some journals impose restrictions on number of tables used in the article.

Thanks Behrouz.  Good views indeed, I agree.  When I was a student we used to joke that SPSS can get us anything, even cats and dogs (pets).  It's our Malaysian habit of describing things when we want to say, 'it's such a lot of data.  Let me exercise wisdom to select carefully...'

In any reserach paper, a lot of qualitative data and analysis that you my put in tables.There are general guidelines in the following link. 

Under Necessity. “Visual material such as tables and figures can be used quickly and efficiently to present a large amount of information to an audience, but visuals must be used to assist communication, not to use up space, or disguise marginally significant results behind a screen of complicated statistics. Ask yourself this question first: Is the table or figure necessary? For example, it is better to present simple descriptive statistics in the text, not in a table”.

For more useful information you may look at the link here-under.

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/19/

Thanks Prof Mahfuz, for a good link.  I have bookmarked it for future use.  Since I got on RG, I have learned the importance of discussing my data rather than just the stats!  It's the research data that we must highlight, thanks.

Graphs are able to show functional correlations, and each experienced reader can eluate with one glance, if the proposed function is ok or not. Graphs have the big advantage of data compression. So in most cases I would prefer graphs.

Sometimes it´s very useful to show "exact" numerical values, so don´t hide them, show your numerical values with error bars in special additional tables.

If graphs are impossible, just use the table data. My list of priority is:

- Graphs

- Graphs with explaining table

- only table.

Thanks for your views @Palani, @Hanno.  (I will get back.)

Dear Behrouz, I like the way you put in all the data into 11 tables and 3 figures in this paper of yours.  You can't do without all the 11T plus 3F.  It's one of your papers I had bookmarked; now I download, thanks.

Article Prediction of elastic modulus of normal and high strength co...

Dear Hanno, your 6 figures and 4 tables in this paper are NEAT, great!  Thanks.

Article Strahlungsmessung und Dosimetrie

Dear Miranda,

thanks for your kind appreciation.

Best regards

Dear Prof Mahfuz, there are 5 figures and 2 tables in this paper.  You will be familiar with it, it's by Eman Abu Gharbieh.  NEAT.  For this 'blue tone', do authors need to pay at all?  Please let me know, thanks.

Article Patient Perspectives of the Role of the Community Pharmacist...

In my research paper, dear Miranda, I care about originality of information  and genuineness of research-- regardless of any tables whatsoever!

All data which may be summarized in a table become more easy to understand for a reader in this form as well as numerical velues to be compared need to be reported as grapks. Hpwever, an explanetion of the synthesis of the data must be reported in the text. In conlusion, use tables and graphs for a whole vision of your results, but write their final message.

Since a lot of information are generated from SPSS utilisation in data analysis, what you present in the table of your paper is what would justify your paper aim and objective. While in the text, you present an interpretative opinion of the information in the table to what it confirms in the research/paper specific context. Remember, all research is "interpretive"

Paulinus,

to be honest, I´ve some problems, to understand your statement of data interpretation. Can you help me?

what did you not understand from the statement. Please be specific

I´ll try it.If you present correct data, you first have to accept them. The next step will be, an implementation into the existing models. Could you please explain, where the place should be for an opinion? To make the discussion a bit easier: I´m experimental physicist.

which ever philosophical stance you are in research, your statistical results cannot convey clarity, comprehension, readability and acceptability by the reader except an interpretation of what your table show and confirm in the paper. It is not alway possible to use figures to explain or interpret  figure. The process of providing explanation to your table with objective or subjective words of your own as to draw out the meaning and reflections of your table figures in the paper context, you are just interpretive at that stage.

@ Miranda, As for Blue tone of the article entitled, "Patient Perspective of the Role of the Community Pharmacist in the Middle East: Jordan, United Arab Emirates, and Iraq”, I have no idea. Anyhow, in research paper, colleagues  care more for the originality and methodology.

Not all results need a statistical interpretation. Some times, I had such situations, you can clearly decide, yes or no. No opinion, just unambiguous facts.

PS: I like the discussion.

All paper is expected to find new things, so the new knowledge your paper is to provide to the relevant stakeholders in the field should post as the originality of your paper. However, to demonstrate this, you need to underscore the process used to arrive to the new knowledge which is methodology, and that is why its is vital in any paper for reliability and validity of the content

You may be right, but that´s not the situation in experimental sciences. You ask, get a defined answer and you represent it.

I´m afraid, we are talking different languages.

To my knowledge, I prefer table to depict results in more understanding way.

Fine, but how do you convey to someone outside your belief what your research is all about and they contributions to the body of knowledge without using words fashioned out by you to suit the situation you're solving. It is impossible to use table all through from the beginning of your analysis and results interpretation to the conclusion. If you believe in explanation as the best style, you can only explain you table based on what you interpret the findings of your table to mean in the paper context, otherwise that table is significantly unreliable and cannot be accepted by the audience.

Whenever there are complex results, whether numerical or non-numerical,  a table is necessary.  In order to make sense of and understand  a lot of data (not always only in the results) that includes several variables, categories, factors, etc., the reader needs a visual layout to accompany what you describe.  Whenever there is a table, a descriptive has to appear just before the table, i.e the table is a summary visual of what you have just reported/described.  

Thus,

1) SPSS tables are for YOUR information, not to be replicated in your writing or even use every single item from the table in your written report (by this, I mean the numbers, not your analyses);  select what parts you will use in the tables you create.

2) Take a look at published articles (good ones, of course) in your topic or similar topic  and study how the authors have used SPSS results and tables. As a matter of fact, take a look at articles to see how and when tables are used/created

3) Last but not least, if space/pages is/are an issues, take a GOOD long look at, review  your writing.  Most writers, especially beginning ones are very "wordy" and use 25 words to say what they can say in 10; and/or use a lot of extra/unnecessary words; or have difficulty summarizing and using only what is most important and relevant in the final report, i.e. a lot of it can be left out. (As en editor, this is a major part of my work and I once was asked to (and did)  "edit" a 45 pp Lit  Review into 15 pp)

Tables are not where you want to save space, but where you need to use judiciously and appropriately.  

It will depend on the answer that your research problem seeks. If SPSS for instance gives you a table containing mean, s.dev, variance, minimum value, maximum value, etc., Do those values answer your problem? If not then I believe you have to "edit" the table and retain only those that are needed.

Tables are "visual aids" that will give a "quick" information about your data.

Narratives will explain the data that cannot be done by the tables.

I usually re-write tables outputted by SPSS or other soft ware to fit them to my research problem and make them more reader friendly.

Thanks for your views.  And for being open minded to the way other scientists will present their data.  I encourage you to look at the papers by Behrouz (in engineering), by Hanno and by Eman (a pharmacy paper), and to read previous posts.  We can all learn from the papers that are already on RG.  Thanks to RG for the great collection of materials :)

Output from Tally table for parameters quantitatively derived will be in Tabulation. Rationale and justification to the numerical values processed through statistical verification of the Table will be described textually.

"A picture is worth a thousand words" is an old, but still valid truth, while big tables can be completely impenetrable.

As most journals will limit the number of figures allowed, one need to carefully prioritize which data should be presented as figures/graphs, and should be "dumped" into tables. 

For many experimental studies, it's invaluable to have a good, schematic drawing of the experimental design. Not only can it save a lot of textual explanations, but it can also be a key to help others understand the obtained data and interpretation.

In experimental work, it is usually possible to roughly separate the obtained data into "background data" (e.g. the size of the experimental animals), and the "novel data" which the study was designed to generate. Those novel data should be prioritized for graphical presentation, while the background data can be tabulated.

Thanks dear @Umachandran, @Bjorn.  I normally use 1 or 2 figures in my papers, and a maximum of 3 tables so far.  @Bjorn, you have a nice way to distinguish between background data and novel data.  Thanks for sharing with us all.

As a norm and/or standard, present qualitative information as tables and/or quantitative information as figures!

Period!

Dear Miranda,

Often the journal editor determines the form of data formulations because generally tables need a lot of place.

Dear Miranda,

it depends on the type of the research and the Journal. Some journals would limit the number of tables and figures in the research article. 

Thanks for your responses dear friends.  I have submitted 6 papers and they include tables and/ or figures.  So far only 1 has been accepted.  I'm just waiting for news about the others.  Have a good day.