Using Sources Correctly
54 Citing or Identifying Images in Your Writing
Increasingly, instructors allow and even encourage students to use images—photographs, maps, sketches, graphs, and so forth—in their writing. Before you do this, check with your instructor to make sure they approve. Remember that if the image was created by someone else, you must give them credit just like with all source material.
We don’t list images on the Works Cited page, but we do identify them in a few ways:
- If your word processor allows captioning, you can add the image information in a caption.
- Otherwise, mention it in the text at the point you are talking about it, enclosing the information in parentheses.
- Ideally, include the author(s), title of source, title of container, publisher, date, and location.
Here’s an example of how you might cite a sketch taken from a hard copy book, where “The Perfect Poodle Hairdo” is the name of sketch and Styling Poodles for Fun and Profit is the book title:
Groomer, Ima. “The Perfect Poodle Coif.” Styling Poodles for Fun and Profit, Poodle Publishing, 2015.
Place this information in the caption box under the image, or near the image in some way. Alternatively, create a footnote that will place the information in the footer space at the bottom of the page.
Text Attributions
- This chapter was adapted from “Citing or Identifying Images in Your Writing” in The Word on College Reading and Writing by Carol Burnell, Jaime Wood, Monique Babin, Susan Pesznecker, and Nicole Rosevear, which is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 Licence. Adapted by Allison Kilgannon.
Media Attributions
- “Camera Lens” by Nikon D3200 is licensed under a CC-0 Public Domain Licence.
