Hey Jill and everyone,
I think that the best plan for tomorrow is to create tables, figures, and
writing that will allow you to do two things
(1) Convey the extent to which you've been able to replicate the original
author's findings
(2) Ensure that the other group undestands your project and will be able
to provide helpful comments.
It sounds like you're already doing a great job on both of those fronts,
so I don't think you should worry too much about having "publication"
quality figures and tables at this point.
Cheers,
Justin
On Sun, 1 Apr 2007, Jill Goldenziel wrote:
Hi Justin and Holger,
I've been using the latex() command in the Hmisc library in R to make my
tables, which has been pretty simple. My output is very
professional-looking and should be easy for anyone reviewing this portion of
the project (i.e., the teaching team and other groups) to follow.
However, while the numbers match the numbers in our original article, the
table format is different. For example, the original article has a "Table
3" with 5 columns, text explaining how the columns differ, stars for
stargazing, and standard errors presented in parentheses beneath each
coefficient. I have a separate table for each column in Table 1, with
separate columns for coefficients, standard errors, and p-values. Instead
of paragraphs explaining what each column represents, I state in the title
or in a footnote to each table what variables are missing from each
regression and what each column represents.
My output is not presented in the best way to "minimize real estate" in
journals, nor is it presented in the most efficient way for an actual
publication. However, at this stage of this particular project, we have
found that looking at the output produced by the latex() command is easier
to read, and helps us to interpret our replication. We think that
presenting the data in this format will also make it much clearer to others
who do not have fluency in the original article text.
So my question is: at this stage of the project, Do I need to be concerned
with making actual publication-quality tables, or replicating the format of
the author's tables exactly? Or should I be primarily concerned with
presenting the data neatly and in a way that I think will be most useful to
those looking at this stage of the project?
Thanks,
Jill