Tables & Figures — Exhibits That Carry the Spine (arpsych-tables-figures)

When to trigger

• The framework is set and you need exhibits that show it, not decorate the text
• A who-found-what summary table would save pages of prose
• The review needs one figure a reader can screenshot and remember
• A meta-analytic result needs a forest plot or effect-summary display

Exhibits in a review do different work than in a primary paper

A primary paper's figures report results; a review's exhibits organize a literature. ARPsych readers and teachers reproduce the good ones in slides for years. Two exhibit types carry most of the load:

1. The conceptual framework figure (the signature exhibit)

One diagram that makes the spine visible — the taxonomy, the process model, the levels-of-analysis stack, the theory contest. It is the review's logo. Tests:

• A reader who sees only this figure grasps the review's argument about the field.
• Every box/arrow maps to a section; nothing in the figure is unexplained in text and vice versa.
• It is self-contained — caption defines all terms; no jargon a non-specialist can't parse.
• It is generative: empty regions read as open questions, not blank space.