# More than Just Figures: Structural and Visual Complexity in Soil Science Articles
## 1 Introduction  
An academic article is a complex structure whose primary task is to present a specific research issue. To achieve this, researchers employ various means of communication, including text, tables, and visual elements. The format and clarity of presentation can significantly influence how effectively a message is conveyed and understood. Well-structured presentation is particularly valuable in disciplines like soil science, in which topics can be highly complex. This structure is sometimes guided by editorial policies (e.g., _Instructions to Authors, Manuscript preparation_), which may set limits on article length or the number of graphical elements. For example, _Nutrient Cycling in Agrocosystems_ prefers manuscripts of 7000 words (excluding references), approximately 14 pages, and 4-8 display items (figures or tables). In contrast, _Revista Brasileira de Ciencia do Solo_ states that the results \"should be presented using tables or, preferably, figures containing graphics, images, or schematic models. The use of more than four tables and four figures should be avoided, as well as restating numeric values that have already been presented in tables and figures\". _Soil_ advises againstusing colored cells in tables. These editorial guidelines are generally flexible compared to strict formatting requirements (e.g., font size, graphic file format, or reference style). Ultimately, authors have discretion over how to structure content, which raises important questions: What determines the method of presenting information in scientific articles? Do larger research teams use more graphical elements? Does the presentation style reflect the journal's scope or prestige (e.g., impact factor--IF)? Previous research shows that visual content --especially graphs--varies significantly across disciplines. [PERSON] [1] compared 57 journals from various fields and found that the fractional graph area (i.e., the percentage of page space devoted to graphs) differed strongly between disciplines and among journals within a discipline. [PERSON] et al. ([2,3]) extended this by linking visual usage to the perceived \"hardness\" of scientific disciplines, with \"hard\" sciences like chemistry and physics devoted more space to graphs than \"soft\" fields like sociology or economics (r = 0.97). Within psychology, quantitatively oriented journals--described as \"hard\"--also featured significantly more graphical content (r = 0.93). [PERSON] et al. [4] found a similar pattern for non-graph visuals (e.g., photographs, diagrams, equipment readouts): natural and exact sciences employ more visual material than the social sciences or humanities. Temporal trends and visual strategies have also been examined. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [5] found that meta-analyses in medicine, psychology, and management differed in their use of visualizations over 30 years, with what the authors describe as an overall underutilization of available graphic techniques, as reflected in the paper's title \"Less is Less\". [PERSON] and [PERSON] [6] studied psychology journals and found that the JIF (Journal Impact Factor) correlated positively with cited references (r = 0.35) and article length (r \(\approx\) 0.3), but negatively with the number of tables (r = -0.14), while showing no significant correlations with the graphs count (r = 0.04). Similarly, 5-year scientific impact (i.e., the number of references that a given scientific article received within 5 years of publication) correlated positively with cited references (r \(\approx\) 0.4), article length (r \(\approx\) 0.3), or table count (r = 0.13), but negatively with graph count (r = -0.14). Meanwhile, [PERSON] [7] reported a moderate positive correlation (r \(\approx\) 0.33) between the number of graphs and citation rates in psychology. Other studies also analyzed the influence of features such as IF, page count, or citation frequency [8,9]. A large-scale study by [PERSON] et al. [10] used machine learning to analyze over 8 million figures from the PubMed Central database (Viziometrics project).