Authorship

Discuss authorship at beginning of the project. Different disciplines have different rules regarding the first or last author. The order may be alphabetical or is determined by the contribution of the co-authors.  Keep in mind that things can change during the course of the project.  Every journal has authorship guidelines and there are institutional guidelines.

Target conferences

Discuss target conference/meeting early in the process. Figure out abstract deadlines/requirements. Some meetings are linked to their own respective journals. If you are presenting at one of these meetings, you might be required to submit to their journal. 

Target journal

Identify a target journal early. Who is your audience? What is its impact factor? Is the journal open access? Is there a publication fee?  What is their acceptance rate? How many issues do they publish a year? Do they publish online ahead of print?  How long does the review process take (check whether papers in that  journal list a submission and an acceptance date)?  Typically, most manuscripts are returned for at least one round of revisions before acceptance. The whole process from submission to publication can take anything from 3 months to a year. Be patient! These questions will give you a rough idea of how long the process will be.

The target journal you choose will also determine how to structure your manuscript, the format required, typical tables and figures, and reference style. If you write your manuscript in Word, learn how to use EndNote or Zotero or another reference manager. Use the reference manager to save relevant articles you want to cite in your manuscript.

Version control! Keep records of each version of the abstract and manuscript. Learn how to track changes in Microsoft. Consider OneDrive or another sharing mechanism so that all co-authors can edit the same manuscript. Otherwise you'll be stuck with trying to sync edits in multiple manuscript drafts. Be prepared for numerous revisions.

Figures

There may be limit imposed by the journals how many tables and figures are allowed (outside the supplement). Figures and table/text supplement each other.

A figure can be a powerful tool to bring your point across. Spend quality time on producing good data visualizations. CSTAT statisticians can help with that. There are good statistical graphics principles to illustrate the main point and avoid optical illusions. A website with interactive graphics can be a great tool (e.g Hans Rosling, Gapminder or Dianne Cook's publications)

Supplement

Consider submitting your protocol, initial data analysis, your programming code, details on the statistical analysis, your programming code in the supplementary material.