Q. What resources are available for creating an image or figure?

Best Practices for Creating Figures 

• Guidelines: Review and follow journal/conference submission guidelines for figure creation.
• Permission: If you are re-using a figure, make sure it's permissions allow for reuse.
• Positioning: Consider that most readers will view the elements of a figure from left to right and from top to bottom, similar to the way the eye travels when reading a page in English. Thus, arranging processes or diagrams with the starting point in the upper left quadrant will help to orient the reader. Also, place important color or symbol keys in a spot where they will be easy to find.
• Simplicity: Avoid clutter such as extraneous details that aren’t relevant or helpful, distracting backgrounds, and gratuitous special effects (such as a 3-D graph when 2-D would suffice). Every component and design element in your figure should serve a purpose in communicating information.
• Clear labels: Use labeling to help readers interpret the visual data. For graphs, include informative axis labels, with units of measurement. Text labels can highlight or clarify key parts of a figure. Annotations such as arrows and scale bars are useful for photographs and micrographs. Just be sure that labels and annotations are large enough that they will be clearly seen if the figures are reduced for publication size.
• Consistency: Be consistent across all of the figures and between the figures and text. Avoid differences in the order of cell lines or groups presented; colors, fonts and symbols used; and labels and terms (including capitalization, hyphenation, and abbreviations).
• Context: Write figure legends, or captions, that provide context so that the reader doesn’t need to refer to the main text to get the basic message. A good formula for a figure legend is starting with a bold title, followed by experimental details or other needed explanation, and ending with explanations of abbreviations and symbols.

Resources/Tools to create images/figures: 

• BioRender is a tool provided by the library which will allow you to create your own figures. Don't forget to cite properly.
• GraphPad Prism is available through the Software Center for MD Anderson employees.
• The R Graph Gallery
• ImageJ for microscopy images
• Brand Central: has MDA-branded logos, templates, images to put in posters, PowerPoint, etc.
• Adobe Stock images offers free images. Login with your MD Anderson email to access images. MD Anderson staff can put in a 4INFO request for Adobe Creative Cloud which allows access to more images under and Educational license.

Image integrity tools:

Each of these tools allows authors to review their manuscript for image discrepancies prior to publications. MD Anderson staff can email RML-Help@mdanderson.org for an account.

• Proofig [Help Center; Getting Started]
• ImageTwin [User Guide; Video Demo]

How to

• Image Checklist - step-by-step list on creating images, figures, and tables for publication
• BioRender video library on creating figures 
• ImageJ User Guide
• How to create publication-quality figures
  •  Includes info on how to arrange and format images and compress the files according to journal requirements. 
• Creating Graphs, Tables, and Posters
  • A YouTube playlist from the Research Medical Library
• Microsoft Resources:
  • Use charts and graphs in your presentation
  • Add a table to a slide
  • Insert a picture in PowerPoint

Support

• Strategic Communications will create figures for you. Contact Strategic Communications for more information. 
• Not sure which tool to use? Contact your Biostatistician for advice. Each department has a point of contact for assistance. 

Copyright

• How do I reuse images, figures or text from a published work?
• RightFind Academic
  • RightFind Academic is a service of the Copyright Clearance Center. This service allows users to find and request permissions for copyrighted material.