jmf-tables-figures - SKILL.md Agent Skill

name: jmf-tables-figures description: Use when building tables and figures for a Journal of Marriage and Family (JMF) manuscript so exhibits are self-contained, accessible, in modified APA style, and count toward the ~35-page (or ~25-page brief-report) limit. JMF counts tables and figures toward the page budget, so exhibits must earn their space. Designs exhibits; it does not run the analysis.

Tables & Figures (jmf-tables-figures)

Exhibits are where an expert reviewer checks whether the family result is real. At JMF they also cost pages: the manuscript page limit (~35 pp.; ~25 for brief reports) includes the abstract, text, tables, and figures. So every exhibit must pull its weight, and many supporting tables belong in supplementary/online materials.

When to trigger

Designing the main results table/figure or a key descriptive exhibit
Deciding what belongs in the article vs. supplementary materials
A reviewer found an exhibit unclear, mislabeled, or non-self-contained
Trimming to the page limit by moving exhibits to supplementary files

Principles

Self-contained, modified APA. A reader should understand each exhibit from its title, notes, and labels alone. Follow JMF's modified APA table/figure conventions: descriptive title, clear notes, significance and abbreviations defined, sample size and units stated.
Show magnitude and uncertainty. Report effect sizes and confidence intervals, not stars alone; for models, prefer marginal effects / predicted values that a family-science reader can interpret (e.g., predicted probability of divorce by duration).
Right exhibit for the design. Survival curves for time-to-event; growth-trajectory plots for panels; APIM path diagrams for dyads; family-structure and decomposition charts for demography.
Accessible. Colorblind-safe palettes; legible in grayscale; no chartjunk or needless 3D.
Descriptive table first. Family papers typically open results with a clear sample-descriptives table (by group/family structure) — make it informative, not a data dump.
Reproducible. Each exhibit is generated by the master script; numbers match the deposited materials exactly (see jmf-transparency-and-data-policy).

Manage the page budget

Keep the few exhibits that carry the argument in the article; move full model tables, robustness grids, balance tables, and measurement detail to supplementary materials.
A reader should be able to follow the family story from the main exhibits alone.

Execution bridge (StatsPAI / Stata MCP)

Generate exhibits from the fitted result, not by retyping numbers (the usual source of body-vs-supplement drift). Full map: execution-with-mcp. JMF is quantitative family demography/sociology; emphasize identification, selection, and decomposition methods.

Tables: etable (multi-model columns) or did_summary_to_latex straight from the result_id.
Figures: plot_from_result / enhanced_event_study_plot / event_study_table — axis units and the SE/clustering note baked in.
Every note names the estimator + clustering and states the effect size in interpretable units.

See a full fitted-result → exhibit chain in the JF execution walkthrough.

Anti-patterns

Tables that require the prose to be intelligible (not self-contained)
Significance stars with no effect size, interval, or substantive meaning
Cramming every robustness check into the main text (blows the page budget — use supplements)
Color-only encoding that fails in grayscale or for colorblind readers
Exhibit numbers/values that don't match the deposited code output

Exhibit pass for Journal of Marriage and Family

Treat this skill as an executable review pass, not a prose hint. First lock the family process, population/sample frame, measurement validity, and longitudinal or comparative leverage; then judge whether the current manuscript answers the venue's real reader: family scholars who inspect measurement, household process, longitudinal design, and implications for family theory.

Do the pass: For every table or figure, state the estimand or object, sample or case base, uncertainty display, and one sentence the exhibit proves for the venue audience.
Return a ledger: give claim / evidence / risk / manuscript location rows, so the next agent can edit rather than rediscover the issue.
Sibling guard: compare against Demography for population-process emphasis, Social Forces for general sociology, Child Development for child-centered outcomes; if a sibling owns the contribution, recommend re-routing before polishing format.
Stop condition: do not give submission-ready advice until the pack's resources/official-source-map.md has been checked for volatile rules and the manuscript has one concrete fix for the largest venue-specific risk.

Output format

【Main exhibit】what it shows + why a figure/table
【Self-contained?】title + labels + notes + N/units present (modified APA)? [Y/N]
【Magnitude shown?】effect size + interval / predicted values? [Y/N]
【Accessible?】grayscale-legible + colorblind-safe? [Y/N]
【Article vs supplement】split decided, page-budget impact noted
【Reproducible?】generated by master script, matches package? [Y/N]
【Next】jmf-writing-style

Supplementary resources

../../resources/external_tools.md — plotting packages for survival, growth, dyadic, and demographic exhibits
../../resources/official-source-map.md — page-limit rule and modified-APA style