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Editing the wiki
About the lab
Protocols
Money
Lab Notebook
Writing
Documentation
What makes a good figure depends on the purpose. A simple classification could be
For quick view of data. These should take at maximum a few hours and should have no graphical 'bells and whistles'. They should however, have clear labels and titles so they are useful. These will be used to make decisions on experiments, early data interpretation and to find issues in the data. These go into your lab notes!
These figures should have a minimal level of graphical consistency, clear labeling and be understandable to people other than you. Labels should be large enough to read. They can be simple, single panels.
These should have a coherent graphical concept (consistent colors, styles, labels) and be pleasant to look at. Panel ordering needs to follow the text of the paper, and they can contain non-plot elements such as schematics, photos etc. Typically, these are multi-panel figures. Each figure should tell a clear story. The best way to tell is if you can come up with a 'topic statement' that encompasses the main conclusion the reader should take from the data shown in the figure.
See Dropbox/Visualizations for a presentation on clear visual communication with helpful links:
Visualizations/Effective scientific visualization.pdf
Here is a matplotlib style sheet that can be customized to set plotting defaults to a pleasant aesthetic. Visualizations/Matplotlib stylesheet
Biorender is a software which has many pre-made icons for biology. It's great for making schematics for your protocol or treatment. Monika has a pro subscription, so if you need to publish it, share it with mscholz@caesar.de and I can do a high resolution export and we then are allowed to publish that figure.
Inkscape is a free vector graphics program. You can import figures made with matplotlib or MatLab and make minor tweaks (color, linewidth, panel numbers). You can also make custom illustrations. Do not make major tweaks - try to do these programmatically, at least for figures you will use over and over!