Structuring your publication
Data, visualisations, and text are all important components of your publication. The following tips help you structure these components in a way that makes your publication pleasant to read and allows others to reuse them.
Introduce your data in a dedicated section
Create a consistent, logical sequence of text and visualisations
Provide a reference list of the data used in the publication
Include data visualisations in the figure list
Mention your data and data visualisations in the copyright notice
Obtain necessary permissions and credit third-party elements in the copyright notice
Writing about data
Writing about data or writing text for data visualisations is an important but often overlooked skill. This section details some tricks and tips on how to make your copy more reader friendly.
Use various writing techniques to make text about data more comprehensible
Make sure the text complements the data visualisation
For visualisations that are frequently updated, write generic text
Write for the web
Write in plain language
Creating data visualisations
Data visualisations present insights from data in a visual manner. Good data visualisations can act as centrepieces to your line of reasoning. The following tips help you create understandable, accessible, and appealing data visualisations.
Define the purpose of your data visualisation
Choose the right type of visualisation
Follow best design practices
Follow best data visualisation design practices
Use an accessible colour palette
Write meaningful titles for your visualisations
Write succinct visualisation legends
State the author of the visualisation, the data source and the reuse licence
Show the data values
Annotate important features
Make use of official EU geodata for maps
Decide which interactive functionalities to offer
Make sure your interactive charts are accessible with the keyboard
Create visualisation designs for different screen sizes
Keep future translations in mind
Preparing visualisations for publishing
Your visualisations might be reused in studies, shown in presentation slides, or shared on social media. This section provides advice on how to prepare the visualisations so that they can be found and reused by others.
If necessary, obtain the permission to use third-party visualisations
License your visualisation so that others can reuse it
Add metadata to your visualisation
Write alt text for your visualisation
Export visualisations separately from the publication
Preparing data for publishing
Data needs to be carefully prepared before being published. The following recommendations guide you through open data practices which help you transform raw data into curated, high-quality and publish-ready datasets.
Improve the openness of your data
If necessary, obtain the permission to use third-party data
License your data so that others can reuse it
Protect personal information before publishing your data
Decide on the scope of the data you will publish
Describe your data with metadata
Structure your data in a machine-readable format
Create documentation about your data
Save your data in a machine-readable file format
Publishing the data and the data visualisations with your publication
Releasing your data and data visualisations as individual components makes your work more impactful. The following tips help you publish those components so that they are easy to locate and access for further reuse.