Manuscript Preparation, Copyediting, and Proofreading

Q. In a table, where would you put the row for Miscellaneous or Other if it has numbers large enough that if the rows were ordered by size, it would appear as row 2 or 3?

Event type

No.

%

Medication

1,045

55

Other

503

27

Surgery

241

13

Dietary

99

5

A. Since other implies “not important enough to identify more explicitly,” that line should go at the bottom of the table. And when a miscellaneous category accounts for so large a part of the data, it should be explained in a note.

[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]