our new paper is now published online. you can check it through the PLoS biology site.
https://plos.altmetric.com/details/100810540
authors: https://twitter.com/helenajambor, https://twitter.com/_AAlpha, https://twitter.com/IFerling, https://twitter.com/SusannAuer, https://twitter.com/GazdaMalgorzata, https://twitter.com/varmaalok22, https://twitter.com/kaiwalya17, https://twitter.com/tracyisneat, https://twitter.com/HungLo_tw, https://twitter.com/mischa_may, https://twitter.com/HoeppnerLab, https://twitter.com/rnaErin, https://twitter.com/I_Vinodh, https://twitter.com/SSarabipour, https://twitter.com/vivekbhr, https://twitter.com/SJB_SynBio, https://twitter.com/balicea1, https://twitter.com/T_Weissgerber
Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing
‡ These authors share the first authorship on this work.
AFFILIATION Mildred Scheel Early Career Center, Medical Faculty, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – review & editing
‡ These authors share the first authorship on this work.
AFFILIATIONS Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Italy, Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy
ROLES Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing
AFFILIATION Orthogonal Research and Education Laboratory, Champaign, IL, United States of America
ROLES Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing
AFFILIATION Evolutionary Genomics Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Okinawa, Japan
ROLES Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Writing – review & editing
AFFILIATION Department of Plant Physiology, Faculty of Biology, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
ROLES Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing
AFFILIATIONS Max Plank Institute of Immunology and Epigenetics, Freiburg, Germany, Hubrecht Institute, Utrecht, the Netherlands
ROLES Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing
AFFILIATION Carl R Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, United States of America
ROLES Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Visualization, Writing – review & editing
AFFILIATION Junior Research Group Evolution of Microbial Interactions, Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology—Hans Knöll Institute (HKI), Jena, Germany
ROLES Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing
AFFILIATIONS CIBIO/InBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Campus Agrário de Vairão, Universidade do Porto, Vairão, Portugal, Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal
ROLES Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing
AFFILIATIONS The Hormel Institute, University of Minnesota, Austin, MN, United States of America, The Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States of America
ROLES Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing
AFFILIATION Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
ROLES Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing
AFFILIATIONS Neuroscience Research Center, Charité—Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt—Universität zu Berlin, Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany, Einstein Center for Neurosciences Berlin, Berlin, Germany
ROLES Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing
AFFILIATION Section of Plant Biology, School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States of America
ROLES Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing
AFFILIATION Gastroenterology and Hepatology Unit, Internal Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, University of Zagazig, Zagazig, Egypt
ROLES Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing
AFFILIATION Institute for Computational Medicine and the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States of America
ROLES Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing
AFFILIATION National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Bangalore, Karnataka, India
ROLES Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing
AFFILIATION National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Bangalore, Karnataka, India
ROLES Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing
AFFILIATION Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States of America
Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing
* E-mail: tracey.weissgerber@charite.de
AFFILIATION Berlin Institute of Health at Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin, QUEST Center, Berlin, Germany
Abstract
Scientists routinely use images to display data. Readers often examine figures first; therefore, figures must be accessible to a broad audience. Many resources discuss fraudulent image manipulation and technical specifications for image acquisition; however, data on the legibility and interpretability of images are scarce. We systematically examined these factors in non-blot images published in the top 15 journals in 3 fields; plant sciences, cell biology, and physiology (n = 580 papers). Common problems included missing scale bars, misplaced or poorly marked insets, images or labels that were not accessible to colorblind readers, and insufficient explanations of colors, labels, annotations, or the species and tissue or object depicted in the image. Papers that met all good practice criteria examined for all image-based figures were uncommon (physiology 16%, cell biology 12%, plant sciences 2%). We present detailed descriptions and visual examples to help scientists avoid common pitfalls when publishing images. Our recommendations address image magnification, scale information, insets, annotation, and color and may encourage discussion about quality standards for bioimage publishing
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