Numbers in Formation: Reader-Friendly Organization of Numerical Data into Tables

Tuesday, 14 September 2021 – COMPLETED

Speakers

Yateen Joshi, EASE Council member and Chair of Training Committee

Overview

Generating first-hand data from experiments or from surveys is at the heart of research. Having put in so much effort to get those data in the first place, some authors are reluctant to let go of even a scrap of data and some simply present the numbers – offload them, really – as collected. Editors, however, may need to trim some data or organize the numbers differently to help readers to get a quick overview of the table and to understand the implications of the data. The proposed session answers the following and other similar questions that mid-career editors often ask.

• How can I make tables more compact?
• Which is the correct alignment for numbers in a column?
• How do I indicate missing data?
• How do I choose between a chart or a graph and a table?
• Where do I place footnotes to a table, at the foot of the table or at the foot of the page on which the table appears?

About the speaker

Yateendra Joshi
Freelance copy editor and trainer

Yateendra Joshi has been editing technical documents for more than 30 years, a career change he made after working for a decade as a scientist with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (1978–88). He was with TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute) in New Delhi for 15 years, moved to Pune to work with WISE (World Institute of Sustainable Energy) in 2005, and has been freelance since 2007, dividing his time between freelance copy-editing and teaching.

He is one of only 27 editors worldwide to be awarded accredited editor with Diplomate status certified by the Board of Editors in Life Sciences, USA. Yateendra is on EASE Council with special responsibility for training.