How to… Publish Images blog series

Posted by FocalPlane, on 27 September 2023

by Helena Jambor

In biology, images document appearances or structures of animals, issues, or cells, and increasingly are a source of quantitative insights of biological processes. Many papers are published every single day with images (Lee, 2018).
Not all of these images are truthful or insightful. Some images are manipulated to mislead audiences (Bik et al., 2016), some images are accidentally misleading due to improper image analysis (Miura and Nørrelykke, 2021), and sometimes images just don’t properly communicate data – many images are not fully accessible and interpretable (Jambor et al., 2021).

Figure extracted from Jambor, et al. 2021 (PLOS Biology) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001161, published under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

As part of a global initiative for quality in light microscopy (QUAREP-LiMi), we came up with guidelines for the publication of image figures. The criteria are summarised in the form of checklists should improve the clarity, interpretability, and reproducibility of scientific image data and analyses in publications. Link paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-023-01987-9.
As scientific community we should ensure that our data truthful and reliable, but also understandable to current and future readers.

Here is a series of blog posts, ‘How to… Publish Images‘, to rapidly orient lay users and links further resource.