← Chapter 8
Professional Writing · Chapter 8

The Table Rebuilder

This is the table exactly as it arrives from a spreadsheet export — technically correct and genuinely hard to read. A good table is an act of editing, so make the edits. Flip each decision on the left and watch the table rebuild itself while the reader’s complaints, on the right, go quiet one by one.
Ten editing decisions
Each one is a single, specific act of editing. Turn one on to see the table change and read why it matters.
The structural rule underneath all ten. Each row is a case — a quarter, a clinic, a patient group. Each column is a variable measured on those cases. Readers scan far more comfortably down a column than across a row, so the number you most want compared belongs in a column.
The table as it stands
Unit 4 East falls, calendar 2025.
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What the reader is still asking
These are the questions a real reviewer raises about this table. Each edit answers one.