Research

Labels, captions, and source information

Each image must include a label, a number, a caption, and source information. The caption describes the image and explains why you included it. Source information provides the source of the image.

Label and Number

The label and number of the image should always appear in two places:

• In the main text of the document (e.g., see fig. 1)
• Next to the image itself (Fig. 1)

Assign figure numbers in the order the images appear in your work.

Note: Microsoft Word makes the numbering easy. On the References tab, click Insert Caption. Word will number the captions automatically, and if you move things around later, you can easily update the numbering: select all the text, right-click, and select Update Field.

Caption

The caption comes directly after the label. If the image is a photograph of a work of art, include the artist's name, title of the artwork, and date of the artwork. The caption does not need to be a complete sentence, but it can be up to several sentences.

Source Information

This is the citation for the image. This is treated as an in-text citation and appears in parentheses at the end of the caption. If the image is from a book, the in-text citation includes the author of the book and the page number the image was found on. If the image is from a website, there are usually no page numbers. If a source does not have an author, cite the title or an abbreviated version of the title instead.

Example

Image with Label, Number, Caption, and Source Information

Figure 1. This Floral Canopy or Screen is a cotton fabric that shows the popular fashion in Mughal India of using flowering plant motifs and chevron borders to decorate textiles (Floral).

In this example, the caption is: 

This Floral Canopy or Screen is a cotton fabric that shows the popular fashion in Mughal India of using flowering plant motifs and chevron borders to decorate textiles

In this example, the credit line is:

(Floral)

The credit line is simply an in-text citation for the source of the image.

Full Citation in the Works Cited

Floral Canopy or Screen. 17th–18th century. Metropolitan Museum of Art,

https://metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/457711.

In Google, Bing, and other search engines, you can usually filter your image search by License:

• Google image search: Click Usage Rights and select Creative Commons licenses.
  • Note: Creative Commons licenses make it easy to figure out whether and how you can use an image, but many do include specific requirements. Before you use an image, make sure to check which requirements and restrictions are specified by the license for that image.
• Bing image search: Click Licenses and select from the options.
  • All Creative Commons - make sure you check the requirements and restrictions of the particular license
  • Public Domain - these images have no copyright restrictions; you can use them however you want to
  • Free to Share and Use / Free to Modify, Share, and Use - use of these images is probably restricted to limited use for personal or educational use (fair use)
  • Free to Share and Use Commercially / Free to Modify, Share, and Use Commercially - these images are probably in the public domain.

The links below provide access to images that are in the public domain or have been made available for reuse and can likely be used in small-run scholarly publications and theses free of charge. Always check the rights statement associated with each image to make sure that you are abiding by the terms of use, which may include a specific format for the credit line.