Writing journal-ready figure legends
A figure legend must be completely self-contained — a reader should understand the figure fully without reading the main text. This is not just good practice; it is a stated requirement in most journal author guidelines. The AI in this tool takes your plain-language description of a figure and writes a structured, self-contained legend including all required components.
Required components of a figure legend
A concise title (in bold, as a short descriptive sentence or phrase). A brief statement of what the figure shows and how the experiment was performed. Panel labels defined (A, B, C). Statistical test specified ("one-way ANOVA with Tukey post-hoc correction"). What error bars represent ("mean ± SEM"). What n represents ("n = 6 independent experiments"). All abbreviations defined, even if defined elsewhere in the text.
Common errors in figure legends
Describing what the figure "shows" without explaining what the data mean (leave interpretation for the Results text). Saying "error bars show standard error" without specifying standard error of what. Saying "significant" without stating what p-value threshold was used. Describing panel A without labelling panels B and C separately. Including colour descriptions without providing a colour-blind-accessible alternative (consider patterns or symbols in addition to colour).