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• specific explanatory information needed to interpret the results shown (in

tables, this is frequently done as footnotes)
• culture parameters or conditions if applicable (temperature, media, etc) as
applicable, and,

• sample sizes and statistical test summaries as they apply.
How much methodology and results are reported in the legends is journal specifi c.
Hot-off-the-press journals like Science and Nature limit the body text so that virtu-
ally all of the Methods are presented in the Figure and Table legends or in footnotes.
Much of the results are also reported in the legends.

17.12 My research was based on various surveys

and interviews. How should I report quotations
from the people we interviewed?
Generally speaking:

• there is no need to translate / report word for word what your interviewees
said

• your transcript should simply enable the reader to understand the core points
the interviewee made

• even if the sentence uttered by the interviewee was not complete, if appropri-

ate you can complete it if it was obvious what he/she wanted to say
• remove any tangential / irrelevant phrases

• remove any filler words – I mean , in other words , that is to say , you know , um , er
However, you should ignore all the above points if the whole purpose of the inter-
view was to report the exact words that were said, e.g. for some linguistics research.

The quotes you provide need further discussion – otherwise the reader is left to
make their own interpretations and to try to make sense of the quotation.