Avoid all irrelevant details. This is the take-home message that the audience should remember, hopefully in combination with your name and affiliation. Excellent figures have the highest impact A picture is worth a thousand words. Well, not necessarily. Figure 4 .
Spreadsheets often produce unsatisfactory figures, particularly with respect to labeling.
A good figure has labels on the curves and not in a legend. Using tables with numbers is in most cases not recommended. Remember that an audience reads everything you show on a transparency, and while they read they pay less attention to what you say. Also avoid theoretical formulas and mathematical derivations. Sometimes you may have to show one, but try to keep it to a minimum.