64 PRS Proofreading and Editing Service PhD Experts • All Academic Areas • Fast Turnaround • High Quality tables should precede figures, whereas for others it’s just the opposite. Sometimes guidelines will ask that tables be embedded in or tacked onto the end of the paper, but the figures submitted in separate files, with only the figure legends included in the paper, usually at the end. The point is to note and comply with whatever is required: it’s disappointing to discover that guidelines won’t let you use tables and figures quite as you’d hoped, but better that than writing the paper with the tables and figures you want only to have it rejected because of them or (in the best scenario) have to completely rewrite your paper with different, fewer or no tables at all. If a set number or style or size of tables and figures is absolutely central to your paper, then be sure to choose a journal that allows it. However many or few tables and figures you use, be sure to label each one accurately and to refer to each of them in the body of your paper as you report and discuss your results. Virtually all journal guidelines specify this (and others expect it), and it’s also a simple courtesy to your reader that facilitates that reader’s understanding of your paper and your tables and figures in relation to it. Unnumbered or misnumbered figures and tables to which the reader is not accurately and precisely referred at an appropriate point in the text defeat their own purpose and negate some of the hard work that went into making them by leaving it to the reader to sort out the relationship between your text and your tables and figures. Tables and figures should also be referred to in numerical order, which means that they should be numbered according to the order in which they are mentioned in the text regardless of where they are actually placed in relation to the text. For clarity, they should also be referred to by number whenever mentioned, with the usual format being ‘Figure 1’ or ‘Table 2,’ unless, of course, the journal guidelines specify a different format (such as ‘Fig.1’), and PARt II: PRePARIng, PResentIng And PolIsHIng YoUR woRk 64