Agent Skills
› brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills
› sci-figures
sci-figures
GitHub用于规范科学图表的展示与审查，确保符合期刊要求。涵盖尺寸、字体、配色无障碍性、数据可视化（如散点图替代柱状图）、图例结构及完整性规则，防止过度修饰，提升图表可读性与严谨性。
Trigger Scenarios
图表数量超出格式预算
字体在打印尺寸下不可读或颜色对色盲不安全
柱状图隐藏底层数据且未标注n值
面板为软件截图直接粘贴
Install
npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill sci-figures -g -y
SKILL.md
Frontmatter
{
"name": "sci-figures",
"description": "Use to finalize Science display items — panel\/word budget, column-width sizing, minimum font sizes, color-accessibility, and showing the data (points over bars). Enforces figure rigor before submission."
}
Display Items (sci-figures)
When to trigger
- Figure count exceeds the format budget (Report ≤4, Article ≤6).
- Fonts are unreadable at print size, or colors are not colorblind-safe.
- Bar charts hide the underlying data (no points, no n).
- Panels are screenshots of software output pasted into the figure.
Sizing for Science columns
Design figures to render at final print width without rescaling text:
- 1 column ≈ 5.5 cm wide
- 2 columns ≈ 12 cm wide
- Full page ≈ 18 cm wide
- Minimum font in the final figure: ~6 pt (sans-serif, e.g., Helvetica/Arial). Text must stay legible after reduction.
- Line weights ≥ 0.5 pt; avoid hairlines that vanish in print.
Show the data, not just the summary
- Replace bar-of-means with dot plots / box+points / violins+points wherever n is small.
- Always state n (and what n is: cells? animals? independent experiments?) in the legend.
- Error bars must be defined in the legend (SD vs SEM vs 95% CI) — never undefined.
- For images (blots, micrographs): show scale bars, and present full, uncropped key blots in Supplementary.
Color and accessibility
- Use a colorblind-safe palette (avoid red/green as the only contrast).
- Don't encode meaning by color alone — add shape/pattern/labels.
- RGB color mode for online; ensure adequate contrast in grayscale.
- No rainbow/jet colormaps for continuous data — use perceptually uniform maps (viridis, etc.).
Figure legend structure
Each legend: a short title sentence (the claim of the figure), then per-panel descriptions (A, B, C…), then statistics (test, n, error-bar definition, P values or exact values). The legend should let the figure stand alone.
Integrity rules (non-negotiable)
- No selective deletion, splicing, or beautification of gels/blots/images without a labeled boundary; disclose any grouping.
- Quantitative comparisons must come from the same experiment/exposure.
- Keep unprocessed source images and source data — Science may request them (
sci-data).
Multi-panel discipline
- ≤ ~6 panels per figure; if more, split or move to Supplementary.
- Consistent axis scales across comparable panels.
- One message per figure; the legend title states it.
Figure pass for Science
Use this as a second-pass capability check. First lock the broad discovery claim, decisive evidence, uncertainty/limitations, and why the result belongs in a general-science weekly; then test whether the manuscript addresses general-science reviewers and editors who ask whether the result changes a broad field, is technically decisive, and can be understood outside the subdiscipline.
- Primary move: Make each figure prove one claim for a broad reader: object, contrast, uncertainty, scale, and failure or limitation should be visible.
- Decision ledger: return
claim / evidence / blocker / next editrows so the next pass can patch the manuscript directly. - Neighbor test: compare against Nature for similar broad-scope novelty, PNAS for academy-wide breadth, specialist journals when the claim is field-internal; if the neighboring outlet has the stronger audience claim, recommend re-routing before polishing.
- Verification floor: before submission-ready advice, re-open
resources/official-source-map.mdfor volatile rules and name the one unresolved fact that could change the recommendation.
Output format
【Item count】 N (budget: Report ≤4 / Article ≤6) → ok / over
【Sizing】 designed at 5.5 / 12 / 18 cm? fonts ≥6 pt? yes/no
【Data shown】 points + n + defined error bars? yes/no
【Colorblind-safe】 yes/no (palette used)
【Integrity】 scale bars / uncropped blots in SM / source data kept? yes/no
【Fixes】 [...]
【Next】 sci-statistics
Anti-patterns
- Do not paste raw Stata/Prism/ImageJ screenshots as figures.
- Do not use bars to hide n=3 with huge spread — show the points.
- Do not leave error bars undefined or mix SD and SEM across panels.
- Do not rely on red-vs-green as the sole encoding.
Version History
- 1839142 Current 2026-07-05 14:24
