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Floating material

One of the nicer features of LaTeX is that it has a good float placement algorithm. If you insert a float (a figure or a table) the compiler will decide where to place it (as soon as possible after the insertion point in your document source). Your only job is to insert the figure after it has been referenced (using a \(\texttt{\\ref{}}\) construct).

You can force to place the float at the point of insertion by specifying a 'H' optional argument to the float environment, e.g.:

\begin{figure}[H]
  blabla
\end{figure}

However, a see a lot of placement abuse.

  1. Floats without a caption

    If your float does not have a caption, you cannot refer to it, and it shouldn't be a float. Use an inline figure or table instead.

  2. Floats that appear before they are referenced

    This confuses your readers, as they will wonder why the hell the text is discontinued for some irrelevant material. Place your floats after their references.

  3. Floats without a reference

    If you don't reference a float, you might as well remove it, as it is irrelevant to the message you bring in your text.

  4. Floats that are typeset '[H]' but that are referenced way earlier or later in the text.

    Only put floats '[H]' if the closeness to the explanation is an added value and you also need to reference them from elsewhere in the text. If you don't need an extra reference, don't use a float (and get rid of the caption as the explaining text is just above and below the image).

Final advice: don't waste time on lists of figures or lists of tables. They are a waste of space. Provide a list of acronyms instead! Advice: use the glossaries package for that. You can find more information on how to use it on CTAN.