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Rhode island school of design, how to cite images.

  • Chicago/Art Bulletin Style

MLA Caption Style

  • When citing an image, the caption should be labeled as Figure (usually abbreviated Fig.), assigned a number, and given a title or caption
  • For images found in a book or journal, include the publication information of the text.
  • A caption ordinarily appears directly below the illustration and have the same one-inch margins as the text of the paper.
  • Captions should be numbered consecutively.

Fig. 1. Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child , Wichita Art Museum. Illus. in Novelene Ross, Toward an American Identity: Selections from the Wichita Art Museum Collection of American Art (Wichita, Kansas: Wichita Art Museum, 1997) 107. Source: Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook . 8th ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2016.

Additional Sources

MLA Style Center

Purdue Online Writing Lab: MLA Format

MLA Handbook (8th Ed) in the library

Citing Unidentified Images

When all or part of an image source is unknown or unknowable, use these points to guide your MLA image caption:

Unknown Artist, Author or Creator List that source by title in your works cited list. The title should be followed by the name of the source in the citation, and the remainder of the citation composed as appropriate for the source type. Alphabetize reference list entries beginning with a title using the primary word of the title (excluding a, an, or the).

An Image without a Title If an image is not titled, create a brief, descriptive title for it. Do not italicize this title or place it in quotes, and capitalize only the first word and any proper nouns.

Undated Sources Use "n.d." (for "no date") in the appropriate place in your citation. When this is used after a period in a citation, capitalize the "n" ("N.d.").

Sources consulted: MLA Citation Examples University of Maryland University Colleges Libraries Miscellaneous Photographs Collection , Archives of American Art

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Citing Images or Graphs

Please see below for MLA guidelines on how to cite images or graphs from the web or from a database.

  • From Database
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Citing an Image or Graph from the Web

Format:  Author(s). “Title of Image/Graph.”  Title of Website in Italics , Website Publisher (if different than title), Date of Publication/Posting, URL.

Example :  “Kim Kardashian.”  Vanity Fair , Condé Nast, 11 Jan. 2004, www.vanityfair.com.

Example 2:  Lange, Dorothea. "Migrant Mother."  Prints & Photographs Reading Room Collection , Library of Congress, 11 Jan. 2004, montevideo.usembassy.gov.

Example (No Title) : Penguin sitting on rock.  National Geographic , www.natgeo.com/images/149603845. Accessed 9 Feb. 2021.

Example (Artwork):  Van Gogh, Vincent.  The Starry Night . 1889.  MoMALearning , Museum of Modern Art, www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/vincent-van-gogh-the-starry-night-1889/.

*Note:  For images without titles, create a descriptive title in plain text – no italics, no quotes. Capitalize only the first word and any proper nouns. *Note:  Italicize titles of formal art work and include the date of creation after the title with a period.  The Starry Night . 1889. *Note:  Include an accessed date at the end if no date of publication/posting is available. *Note:  Image URLs should be from the actual website that hosts the image. Be careful with this. If you use Google or another search engine to find the image, if you copy the URL it may give you Google's search URL rather than the actual URL of the image's website. *Note : You can usually omit the http:// unless needed to hyperlink. *Note:  For URLs longer than 3 lines, you can shorten the URL. Always retain the host (main website) of the URL.

Citing an Image or Graph from a Database

Format:  Creator(s). "Title of Image/Graph ." Title of Source (if given),  Publisher, Date.  Database Name,  URL.

Example:  Johnson, Clinton. "Boston Street Scene." Library of Congress, 1895.  Credo Reference,  go.openathens.net/redirector/sccsc.edu?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.credoreference.com%2Fcontent%2Fentry%2Fbridgeart%2 Fstate_street_boston_engraved_by_s_lacey_engraving_b_w_photo%2F0%3FinstitutionId%3D2682.

Example:  "Daily Time Spent on Social Networking by Internet Users Worldwide from 2012 to 2022 (in Minutes)."  Digital 2022: Global Digital Overview , We Are Social / DataReportal / Hootsuite, 26 Jan. 2022.  Statista , www.statista.com/statistics/433871/daily-social-media-usage-worldwide/.

Citing Images in a Presentation

MLA gives two different ways to cite an images in a presentation or paper depending on how you are using the image in your presentation. The difference depends on whether the image is just for illustration or decoration (a stand along image), or if you're going to refer to this image in your presentation (the image itself is part of the content of your presentation.

Option 1: Image is for Illustration or Decoration (not going to talk directly about the image during your presentation).

In this case, list the entire citation information in the caption of the image. Do not list it on your Works Cited page at the end.

Option 2: Image is Part of the Presentation (going to talk about the image specifically during your presentation)

​In this case, you'll still include a caption for the image, but the caption will only include an in-text citation, and the entire citation information will go on the Works Cited page like you with a regular source.

See the two different ways you could use the image below in a presentation, and how the citing would differ.

​Option 1: If the image below is on a slide about massage therapists, but you don't directly talk about the image, then you'd include the full citation information in the caption for the image. See below.

chair massage

Fig. 1: Cuttingham, Alyssa. Massage Chair. Massage & Bodywork , vol. 28, no. 3, Dec. 2016, p. 14. Vocational and Career Collection , search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,sso&db=imh&AN=imh984947&site=ehost-live&scope=site&custid=s9007306.

Option 2: If you're displaying this image of the massage chair in order to talk about the correct positioning and demonstrate how someone should sit in the chair, meaning that you'll talk about this image and what it shows, then you would include the citation information in your Works Cited, and the caption would just include an in-text citation.

how to cite an image in an essay

Fig. 1: Correct Positioning in a Massage Chair (Cuttingham 14).

Works Cited

Cuttingham, Alyssa.  Massage Chair. Massage & Bodywork , vol. 28, no. 3, Dec. 2016, p. 14. Vocational and Career Collection, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,sso&db=imh&AN=imh984947&site=ehost-live&scope=site&custid=s9007306.

Citing Artwork in a Project

There are several ways to cite Artwork in a project in MLA format.

When you include artwork directly into your paper or presentation, it should be labeled as "Fig." with a number, followed by a period. (Example: Fig. 1.).

Under the image, place a caption that will start with the Figure label and number. Then you have options for how to finish the caption.

Give the full MLA citation for your source. Do not invert the creator's name (if you have one listed). 

If you include the full MLA citation in your caption and you do not cite the source again in your project, you do not need to include the source in your Works Cited.

Vincent Van Gogh's "Self Portrait" 1889

Fig 1. Vincent Van Gogh.  Self Portrait . 1889.  National Gallery of Art , www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.106382.html. 

Give basic information about your source such as the creator of the image, title, year, and any other important information. If you do not include the full MLA citation, your source must be added to your Works Cited page.

Fig. 1. Vincent Van Gogh,  Self Portrait,  oil on canvas, 1889.

Van Gogh, Vincent.  Self Portrait . 1889.  National Gallery of Art , www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.106382.html. 

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MLA 8th - Referencing Guide

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• All images, referred to in the text or reproduced in an essay, assignment or presentation, must be cited and included in your works cited list.

• When referring to an image in the text of your essay, give a short citation consisting of the name of the artist (s), creator(s) or author(s), and, if appropriate, the relevant page, figure, table, paragraph number or time:

Debate raged about the ethics of child care after the publication of the cartoon " Thoughts of a Baby Lying in a Child Care Centre " in the Sydney Morning Herald (Leunig 24).

The power and strength of the female athlete is depicted in Leibovitz's portrait of Jackie Joyner-Kersee (72).

The positive and negative implications of five aspects of Confucian ethics were analysed (Yeh and Xu Table 1).

Ardagna et al. have created a three layer structure for e-services; e-service components, an application server and the operating system platform (Fig. 1).

The fear of the officers, who had no desire to meet with Ned Kelly, is unambiguously portrayed on the face of the trooper in the painting The Encounter (Nolan).

The artistic process of characterisation is explained in Marion Kessel's fim Making of a Monologue (min. 10:10).

• When reproducing any visual material, such as a photograph, artwork, map, graph or chart, in your essay, assignment or presentation, it should be labelled with Figure (usually abbreviated as Fig.) and assigned a numeral. The full reference for the source should be given as a caption and placed imediately below the image:

how to cite an image in an essay

Fig. 1. Leunig, Michael. "Thoughts of a Baby Lying in a Child Care Centre." The Sydney Morning Herald, 27 Jul. 1995 , p . 24.

Fig. 2. Jackie Joyner-Kersee from Leibovitz, Annie. Olympic Portraits . Little Brown, 1996, p. 72.

Fig. 3. The positive and negative implications of Confucian ideas (Table 1) from Yeh, Quey-Jen, and Xiaojun Xu. "The Effect of Confucian Work Ethics on Learning About Science and Technology Knowledge and Morality." Journal of Business Ethic s, vol. 95, no. 1, 2010, pp. 111-128. ProQuest , doi: 10.1007/s10551-009-0352-1.

Fig. 4. E-services three-layered structure (Fig. 1) from Ardagna, Claudio Agostino, et al. "Open-Source Solution to Secure E-Government Services." Encyclopedia of Digital Government. Edited by Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko and Matti Malkia, Idea Group Reference, 2007, pp.1300-1305. IGI Global, http://www.igi-global.com.libproxy.murdoch.edu.au/gateway/chapter/full-text-pdf/11671.

Fig. 5. Nolan, Sydney. The Encounter, 1946 , Enamel paint on composition board . National Gallery of Australia, cs.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=28938.

Fig. 6. The Making of a Monologue: Robert Wilson's Hamlet . Directed by Marion Kessel, Cinema Guild, 1995, Video, min. 10:10. Theatre in Video , http://search.alexanderstreet.com.libproxy.murdoch.edu.au/view/work/1779981.

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Extended Essay Resources: Finding and Citing Images

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Using Images in a Presentation

Is the image for decoration? If yes, follow below. No? Keep scrolling.

1. Royalty-free clipart does not require an attribution.

2. Public domain images don't require an attribution. However, it's considered good form to allow your audience to find your images. You should make an attribution in a caption beneath or adjacent to the image that states the title/name of the image, the author/creator (if you can find it), the source, and the license. Then h yperlink the title of the image and author to the source of the image. See the box below for more information on creating attributions.  For example:

how to cite an image in an essay

Lightbulb by ColiN00B is licensed under Creative Commons CC0 

Photo by ColiN00B on Pixabay

Is the image for analysis or to support your argument? If yes, follow below.

1. In this case, you are using the image in an academic way so you should provide an MLA citation.  Remember, a URL is not a citation. You must provide a citation for an image in the same way that you make a citation for a book or a website. Use NoodleTools to help. You can list citations like this:

Creator’s Last name, First name. “Title of the digital image.”  Title of the website , First name Last name of any contributors, Version (if applicable), Number (if applicable), Publisher, Publication date, URL.

Vasquez, Gary A. Photograph of Coach K with Team USA.  NBC Olympics , USA Today Sports, 5 Aug. 2016, www.nbcolympics.com/news/rio-olympics-coach-ks-toughest-test-or-lasting-legacy.

2. You can put the citation as a caption beneath the image. You can also list it with your other references in your "Works Cited" list. 

Creative Commons and Royalty-Free Media

  • 10 Websites with Free Stock Video Footage Free royalty free stock footage is hard to find but we have compiled a list of some of the better sites that are offering a selection of video clips available for download and use in personal and commercial projects.
  • Compfight Locate the visual inspiration you need. Super fast!
  • Creative Commons Search for images and videos with a Creative Commons re-use license on multiple websites.
  • Flickr Commons Images with no known copyright restrictions from various cultural heritage institutions
  • Getty Search Gateway The Getty Search Gateway allows users to search across several of the Getty repositories, including collections databases, library catalogs, collection inventories, and archival finding aids.
  • Google Images Choose "Tools" > Choose "Usage Rights" > Choose "Labeled for reuse"
  • Morguefile Morguefile is a free photo archive “for creatives, by creatives.”
  • Open Clipart Free, public domain clip art.
  • Pexels.com Pexels provides high quality and completely free stock photos licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license.
  • Photos for Class Search now to download properly attributed, Creative Commons photos for school!
  • Pixabay Pixabay is a vibrant community of creatives, sharing copyright free images and videos. All contents are released under Creative Commons CC0, which makes them safe to use without asking for permission or giving credit to the artist - even for commercial purposes.
  • Snappygoat.com Over 13,000,000 free public domain images.
  • Tineye Have an image but not sure where it's from? Try this reverse image search.
  • Unsplash Over 1,000,000 free (do-whatever-you-want) high-resolution photos brought to you by the world’s most generous community of photographers.
  • Video Assets from Camtasia Royalty-free elements to enhance your videos in Camtasia
  • Wikimedia Commons Over 40 million freely usable media files. Attributions provided. This is a great source for finding historical images, as well.

How to make attributions next to an image

  • Creative Commons - Best practices for attribution You can use CC-licensed materials as long as you follow the license conditions. One condition of all CC licenses is attribution. Here are some good (and not so good) examples of attribution.

If you use images, such as photographs or clipart , in your presentation, you should also credit the source of the image. Do not reproduce images without permission. See the box "Finding Public Domain Images" in this guide to find sources for images that are "public use".

Use the acronym TASL to remember how to attribute images:

T - Title/Description

A - Author or creator

S - Source & date (Name of the website the image is from)

L - License or location (Creative Commons license or URL)

For example...

how to cite an image in an essay

" Satellites See Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt " by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is licensed under CC by 2.0

Title: Satellites See Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt  Author: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Source: Flickr (linked in title)  License: CC by 2.0

Quick Guide

Citing images in mla.

  • OWL Purdue - Images
  • OWL Purdue - Tables and Figures The purpose of visual materials or other illustrations is to enhance the audience's understanding of information in the document and/or awareness of a topic. Writers can embed several types of visuals using most basic word processing software: diagrams, musical scores, photographs, or, for documents that will be read electronically, audio/video applications.
  • OWL Purdue - Other types of sources Several sources have multiple means for citation, especially those that appear in varied formats: films, DVDs, T.V shows, music, published and unpublished interviews, interviews over e-mail; published and unpublished conference proceedings.

Public Domain Images

These images are in the public domain. They are free to use, but you must make an attribution or citation.

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Art & Art History: Citing Images in MLA Style

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Citing Images in MLA Style

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Captions in MLA Style

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers 4.5

Visual material should be labeled as Figure and assigned a number in increasing order starting with 1. The caption should be placed below the illustration and include a citation to the source material. It also may be appropriate to add copyright information at the end of the citation. No additional citation is needed when the source is not cited within the text of the paper. If you are creating captions for works of art also see guidelines from the Art Bulletin and College Art Association.

Fig. 1. Manticore, woodcut from Edward Topsell, The History of the Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents …(London, 1658; 344); rpt. In Konrad Gesner, Curious Woodcuts of Fanciful and Real Beasts (New York: Dover, 1971; print; 8).

Fig. 2. John Singleton Copley, Mrs. Joseph Mann (Bethea Torrey) , 1753, Oil on canvas, 91.44 X 71.75 cm. (36 X 28 ¼ in.). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In Sylvan Barnet, A Short Guide to Writing about Art (Boston: Pearson, 2011; print; 143).

If work is being published include copyright information, ie who owns the right to publish the image or work of art.

Citing a Cartoon

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers 5.7.9

Citation should conform to the medium in which you find the cartoon or comic strip, e.g., newspaper, magazine article, book, or website. Add the descriptive label Cartoon or Comic strip between the title and name of publication.

Chast, Roz. “Scenes from a Vacation.” Cartoon. New Yorker 31 Oct. 2011: 66-67. Print.

Weiner, Zach. “Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.” Comic strip. Smbc-comics.com . N.p., 17 Nov. 2011.

         Web. 18 Nov. 2011. <http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2434>.

More Information

  • Citing in MLA 8 style More information on citing sources in MLA 8 style.

Cite these as you would for the resource in which the visual media is found. For specific works of art, see the section. Cite following the guidelines for the type of resource, but make a note of where the visual is included in the resource, ie page or figure number. Cite the creator of the image as the author and the title of the image instead of an article title.

Image in an Article:

Talbot, David. "Saving Holland." Technology Review 110.4 (2007): 52, figure 3. Print.

Vermeer, Dura. "High and Dry Concept." Technology Review 110.4 (2007): 56. Print.

Maxwell Museum of Anthropology. “An Arrowhead, Made from a Copper Nugget, Found at a Melting

         Alaskan Glacier.” Miller-McCune 3.6 (2010): 23, figure 4. Print.

Online Image:

If citing an image found using Google images, cite the original source – not Google.

Estrin, James. “A Worshiper at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.” New York Times .

         New York Times. 27 Nov. 2011. Web. 8 Dec. 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/nyregion

         /for-catholics-the-word-was-a-bit-different-amen.html?ref=us.&_r=0>.

When citing a work of art, include the location of the piece and the owner or collection where it is housed along with the medium and size. See also captions and citing works of art below.

Dior, Christian. May. 1953. Silk. Length at CB ((a) to waist): 5 3/4 in. (14.6 cm) Length at CB (b): 45 1/2

         in. (115.6 cm). New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. N.d. Web. 4 Jan. 2012.

         <http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/80002249>.

Image or Photograph from a Book:

Gruen, Bob. “Madison Square Garden, July 1972.” Life . By Keith Richard with James Fox. New York:

         Little, Brown and Company, 2010. Color plate 12. Print.

“Equality and Affection: Matched Costumes in ‘My One and Only Highland Fling.’” Astaire & Rogers .

         By Edward Gallafent. New York: Columbia University Press. 225. Print

Citing a Work of Art

Work of Visual Art including Photographs in a Museum Collection:

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers 5.7.6 – see also citing a website if you are citing an image from the web.

MLA does not require you to include the dimensions, but it is safer to include it when citing for art and art history. Also see guidelines from the Art Bulletin and College Art Association.

Artist. Title of Work . Date of Composition or N.d. Medium. Dimensions. Collection. City where located.

Calder, Alexander. Untitled . 1976. Aluminum and steel. 910.3 x 2315.5 cm (358 3/8 x 911 5/8 in.).

         National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Heckman, Albert. Windblown Trees . N.d. Lithograph on paper. 11 3/8 x 16 1/8 in.

         (28.9 x 40.8 cm). Private collection.

If you use a reproduction include the publication information of where the reproduction is found and page, figure, or plate number.

Munch, Edvard. The Scream . 1893. Oil, pastel and casein on cardboard. 91 x 73.5 cm. National

         Gallery, Oslo. Edvard Munch: The Scream . Ed. Reinhold Heller. New York: Viking Press,

         1973. 57. Print.

Pollock, Jackson. Number 27 . 1950. Oil on canvas. 49 x 106 in. Whitney Museum of American

         Art, New York. Imagining America: Icons of 20th-Century American Art . By John Carlin and

         Jonathan Fineberg. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. 106. Print.

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How do I reference my own photographs in APA style?

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If you created the image ( your own photograph or image  displaying your own data that you have compiled in a graph or chart), you do not need to reference it, no citation or copyright attribution is required. The image must be clearly labeled with a figure or table number in the main text of your essay. For examples please see the links below:

Links & Files

  • APA 7th Referencing Guide: Referencing images -Own images
  • Can I use images from the Internet in my assignment or project?
  • How do I reference an image (figure) in APA style that I'm displaying in a presentation (Powerpoint, poster, video, etc)?
  • How do I credit a photo with a Creative Commons licence?
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Citing Images Found with Google

If you found your image through Google Image Search, remember to cite the original page on which the image appears, not the Google Images results page.  It's just like a textual web source: cite the URL that takes you directly to the source.

Just like you would cite any textual source you use in a project or paper, you should give proper attribution for any images you include.  Each discipline has slightly different requirements, so check with your professor. 

The basic information you should always note includes:

  • the artist/photographer/creator
  • the source (i.e., information about the book, journal, database, or web address where you found the image, including page numbers and publication information).

Check the appropriate style manual to find out what to do for each citation style.

Online Citation Resources

  • Finding and Using Online Images - Simon Fraser University
  • Exporting Citations from JSTOR Includes information on how to export citations for both journal articles and images in MLA, APA, and Chicago styles.
  • How to Cite an Image, Scribbr

The "Big Three" Styles + What Is a Style?

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  • Journals/Periodicals/Newspapers
  • Social media
  • Government sources/industry reports
  • Legal sources (including Treaties and United Nations Declarations)
  • Theses/dissertations
  • Data, figures and images
  • Speeches/broadcasts/ audiovisual/music scores/interviews
  • Live performances
  • Abbreviations and symbols used in referencing
  • Appendix A - Figure and table captions; Music notations
  • Appendices B & C - Quick guides to referencing articles and in-text citations
  • Appendix D - Sample Harvard style reference list

Page contents

Figure, print *figures include diagrams and all types of graphs

Figure, online *figures include diagrams and all types of graphs

Table, print

Table, online

Map, online

Atlas, print

Atlas, online

Electronic dataset, doi *only applies to published raw data uploaded to a data repository

Computer software, online

Computer software , no programmer, online *use title in place of author

Web software (e.g. Flash and Java applets, other browser-based learning objects)

Source code

CD-ROM/DVD-ROM *stand alone data discs, not audio discs or software

Database, online *use only for the database itself

Work of art, viewed in person

Images, online

Images from a database , known creator,

Images from a database , unknown creator *use title

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How to Cite an Image in Chicago Footnote Referencing

3-minute read

  • 20th April 2020

Need to reference an image in an essay? Then make sure you cite it, too! In this post, we look at how to cite an image in Chicago footnote referencing . We’ll also look at how this works when reproducing an image published elsewhere.

If you are simply mentioning an image in the text of an essay – not reproducing it in the essay itself – you can simply add a footnote citation for the source:

We see this in the first illustration in the book. 1

The exact format for the citation will depend on where you found the image. If it is from a published book , article or website , you will need to cite this. The only difference is that you can use a figure number as well as a page number.

For instance, a footnote citation for an image from a book would look like this:

1. Timothy Smith, David Ramirez, and Brianna Kelly, The Origins of Perspective (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019), 17, fig. 1.

For a standalone work (e.g. from a gallery), there is a separate format:

n. Artist name, Title of Work, date of creation, medium, other details (if known), location, URL (if applicable).

So, for instance, we could cite an image from a gallery as follows:

2. William Hogarth, Francis Matthew Schutz in His Bed , 1760, oil on canvas, 63 × 75.5 cm, Norwich Castle, Norwich, https://artuk.org/discover/stories/william-hogarths-francis-matthew-schutz-in-his-bed.

The key is to give enough detail to fully identify the artwork you are citing.

Reproducing an Image in an Essay

If you need to include the image in your essay, while you can provide a footnote citation, you can also put key source information in a caption.

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In practice, a caption citation would look like this:

Chicago Caption Citation

Keep in mind, though, that images may be copyrighted ! This isn’t a problem if you’re writing an essay, since educational uses are usually exempt from copyright. But it will apply if you’re writing something that will be published!

How to List an Image in a Chicago Bibliography

To include images in a Chicago bibliography , as with citations, the format depends on where you found the image.

For published images, you will use the format for the container volume. With a book, for instance, the entry in a Chicago bibliography would look like this:

Smith, Timothy, David Ramirez, and Brianna Kelly. The Origins of Perspective . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019.

For a standalone image, meanwhile, the format would be:

Artist Surname, First Name. Title of Work . Date of creation. Medium, other details (if known). Location, URL (if applicable).

As such, we would list Hogarth’s painting in the bibliography as follows:

Hogarth, William. Francis Matthew Schutz in His Bed . 1760. Oil on canvas, 63 × 75.5 cm. Norwich Castle, Norwich, https://artuk.org/discover/stories/william-hogarths-francis-matthew-schutz-in-his-bed.

Hopefully, this has helped you understand how to cite an image using Chicago footnote referencing. And if you’d like an expert to check your academic writing, we have proofreaders available 24/7 .

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When to Use an Image in an Essay: What You Need to Know

Author Image

by  Antony W

September 13, 2022

when to use an image in an essay

There’s a 98% chance that the essays you’ve written so far are pages of text alone. While plain text can make the work look dull, academic writing hardly ever requires you to use images, charts, and graphs in the essay. 

While that doesn’t mean you can’t include visuals in your assignment, it’s important to learn when to use an image in an essay.

You can add an image in your essay only if it serves a specific purpose such as illustrating an argument for more clarity. If you’re going to include an image in your essay, make sure you present it correctly and at the same time follow the standard citation rules.

In this guide, we’ll talk more about images in an essay, including why they’re important, when exactly to add one in your work, and the right way cite them.

In the end, you should be able to make a solid judgment as far as the inclusion of images in your work is concerned.

Key Takeaways 

  • The types of images you can use in an essay are pictures, graphs, and charts.
  • It’s acceptable to add an image in an essay to illustrate an argument for more clarity.
  • Images can be useful when explaining a process, showing an example, or in the instance when you want to grab your reader’s attention.
  • Be advised that you must follow the accepted citation rules when including an image in the essay.

What Type of Images Can You Include in An Essay?

Just because you can include an image in an essay doesn’t mean any image you include in the assignment will be a good fit.

Remember, the role of an image is to give your essay a better structure and make your writing readable and easy to understand.

Instructors don’t impose limits on the types of images a student can include in an essay.

For example, a student working on an IB Physics Internal Assessment can use charts, drawings, photos, and infographic to explain concepts that would be otherwise difficult to explain in words.

However, there are rule you must observe.

1. Pictures 

Pictures introduce breaks between blocks of words in an essay while adding meaning to the overall context of the assignment.

By themselves, pictures are worth a thousand words, which is another way to state that they’re descriptive enough to communicate a solid message.

While you can use any picture in your essay, provided it’s relevant for your topic, the image you choose to include must have meet the following requirements:

  • The image should be clear when viewed in web document and in print
  • You must have the legal right to use the image in your essay – otherwise you’d have to create your own
  • The image you choose should be relevant to the topic of your essay

The next thing you need to understand before including an image in an essay is placement .

In other words, where should you insert the picture?

  • End of the essay: Include the image in the reference section of your essay and then include a reference to the image in the body text of your essay.
  • In the body of the essay: Have the image inserted on a separate page within the body section of your essay. Don’t forget to mention the picture in the text so that your readers are aware that you’ve intentionally included it in your work.
  • Within body text: You can use in-text citations to include an image in your essay, but it’s best to avoid this option because it tends to alter the formatting of the paper.

The picture you include in your essay must have a source name, unique description, and a number to make it easy for your reader to find and reference the image if they want to.

Also, you should attribute the photo if you don’t own it so that you don’t violate the copyright ownership of the material. 

2. Graphs and Charts 

Graphs and charts are the best type of media to include in an essay.

Unlike standard pictures, graphs and charts can easily explain complex concepts in visuals than lengthy words would do. These types of images are useful because they can help you to:

  • Illustrate size, meaning, or a degree of influence
  • Compare two or more objects 
  • Provide an illustration of some statistics that are relevant to your study

The best thing about using graphs and charts in an essay is that you can explain complex concepts and make them easily understood.

So whether you want to show a comparison or believe that graphs and charts can communicate ideas better than words, you can add some visualization to your work to make your essay appear more appealing and easier to read.

You can use ready-made graphs and charts in your work provided you cite them properly.

Or you can use a software solution such as Microsoft PowerPoint to create your own.

Whether you download your media from the web or create them on your own, it’s important that you add appropriate naming and comments to enhance information clarity.  

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If you haven’t started your essay because you have many other assignments to complete, you can  hire our essay writers   to help you get the work done fast.

We help with topic selection, research, custom writing, editing and proofreading at an affordable price.

When to Use an Image in an Essay

The following are instance of when it would make sense to use an image in an essay:

1. When Explaining a Process

Some processes are difficult to explain because they are complex.

If you don't think words can adequately convey meaning or the message you wish to communicate, it would be best to use an image to simplify your explanations and bring out meaning.

2. If You Want to Show an Example

Any claim you make in your article or research paper must include proofs and specific examples.

To reinforce your argument, you might provide a graphic or chart as an easy-to-understand illustration.

Let’s say you want to talk about the effects of various medications on bacteria.

In such a case, it would make more sense to use a before-and-after photographs or graphs to illustrate your point.

3. Images Are Useful for Grabbing Reader’s Attention

You can use graphic pictures to draw the attention of your readers. When writing on works of art and cultures, it would make a lot of sense to include images in your piece of writing.

Final Thoughts

To be abundantly clear, images aren’t a requirement in essay writing.

So you should only include them if they serve unique and academically acceptable purpose.

You don’t want to add an aesthetic appeal to your essay when really there’s no need for you to do so in the first place. 

About the author 

Antony W is a professional writer and coach at Help for Assessment. He spends countless hours every day researching and writing great content filled with expert advice on how to write engaging essays, research papers, and assignments.

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Want To Get Into The Ivy League? Here’s How Long The Application Process Really Takes

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One of the main gates on the Brown University campus, decorated with the University crest. (Photo by ... [+] Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images)

While the college admissions process begins in earnest during a student’s junior year of high school, a standout college admissions profile is the result of years of strategic and intentional planning. This is especially true for students with Ivy League dreams—joining the ranks of students at Yale, Princeton, and Harvard requires time, dedication, and consideration long before students start their applications. Even the most talented, qualified students underestimate the amount of time that goes into planning for and completing the application process. Starting early and planning ahead are crucial for crafting stand-out Ivy League applications.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of how much time you should realistically expect to invest in the Ivy League admissions process, from start to finish:

Developing Your Hook: 4 Years

A “ hook ” is the element of a student’s profile that “hooks” the attention of admissions officers—it is the X factor that distinguishes a student from thousands of other applicants. It should be the anchoring interest around which all other elements of an application coalesce. Developing this defining passion requires time and dedication, so the earlier a student starts intentionally exploring their interests to develop this hook, the better. Beginning in freshman year, students should explore activities, courses, and volunteer opportunities in their schools and communities, thoughtfully weighing what they most enjoy as they do so. Over the next few years, students should hone their hook through continued involvement in extracurricular or volunteer opportunities that align with their guiding interests, seeking leadership opportunities when applicable.

Building an Independent Project: 2 years

One of the most effective ways to showcase a hook is through an independent passion project. Sophomore, junior or fall of senior year, students should craft an initiative that uses their passions to better their communities, as this will demonstrate self-motivation, genuine passion, and leadership acumen to Ivy League and other top colleges. Their project could take the shape of scientific research, a nonprofit, a community initiative, or a startup business. Students should spend a few months brainstorming, planning, and setting clear goals before entering the implementation stage. They should be sure to document their progress meticulously as they overcome hurdles and meet their goals, as this will enable them to relay their successes clearly and specifically on their applications in the future.

Researching Colleges & Structuring College List: 6 months–1 year

During their junior year, students should consult a variety of resources and rankings and begin to develop their college lists. As they do so, they should keep in mind that every ranking system takes unique factors into account—for instance, while U.S. News and World Report focuses on metrics related to academic quality such as academic reputation and graduation rates, Forbes is heavily focused on financial metrics , considering ROI, average debt, and alumni salary. In addition to weighing schools’ rankings, students should also seek to balance their college lists by comparing their academic standing with the academic profile of admitted students. If a student’s GPA and test scores fall within the middle 50% of admitted students, the school is a match; if they are above the 75th percentile, that school is likely a safety, and if their scores are below the 25th percentile, the school is a reach.

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Studying & Taking Standardized Tests: 6 months–1.5 years

Typically, students will have completed the mathematics coursework needed to take the SAT and ACT by the spring of their sophomore year and should sit for diagnostic ACT and SAT tests around that time. Once they receive their diagnostic scores, students should create a study plan that will enable them to reach their goal score, which should be set relative to their college aspirations; students with Ivy League dreams should aim to earn a 34+ on the ACT or a 1550+ on the SAT. The amount of time needed to prepare for and ace standardized tests often varies greatly depending on students’ diagnostic scores, goal scores, and how much time and effort they devote to studying.

Writing Essays & Assembling Applications: 6 months

Finally, completing the actual application is perhaps the shortest stage of the process—though it is the most important. Students who have dedicated time and effort to building their applicant profiles throughout their high school careers will reap the benefits of their long term planning; they will be able to approach the process with a clear understanding of the unique story they wish to convey through their application components. Students should kickstart the process in the spring of their junior year by requesting recommendations from their teachers, school counselors, and other non-academic mentors. The summer before senior year is a critical time to work on the personal statement, which tends to be one of the most time consuming elements of the application process as it requires lengthy brainstorming, drafting, and editing. Supplemental essay prompts for specific schools are generally released in August, so students should plan to devote the remainder of their summer and fall to completing those essays. Finally, with focus and dedication, students can complete the activities list in one to two weeks, but they should devote concerted attention to the activities list like all the other elements of their application and be sure not to save it until the last minute.

While every student is different and will need to assemble their own timeline, the college admissions process is a demanding one—particularly for students determined to gain admission to the most elite universities in the country. Students should begin preparing early in order to give themselves some leeway and submit applications that they are truly proud of.

Christopher Rim

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THE WIDER IMAGE

In albania, two women take on a nation with a rooftop wedding.

Edlira Mara (left), Alba Ahmetaj (centre), 44, and their twin daughters get ready for their wedding ceremony in central Tirana, Albania, May 19, 2024. REUTERS/Florion Goga

By Florion Goga

Filed May 31, 2024, 11:09 a.m. GMT

Photography by Florion Goga

Writing by Fatos Bytyci and Florion Goga

Filed June 03, 2024, 08:00 a.m. GMT

In many ways Alba Ahmetaj and Edlira Mara lead an ordinary life. They brush their twin daughters’ hair before school and play fight with them in their flat on weekend mornings. They have matching shoulder tattoos that mark their 14 years together.

But in their fight to be treated like other families, the lesbian couple did something extraordinary.

how to cite an image in an essay

At dusk on Sunday, May 19, friends cheered as they stood out on the rooftop of the mayor’s office in central Tirana, kissed, exchanged rings and got married.

Their marriage is not acknowledged by the state - Albanian law does not recognise same-sex civil unions. It has prompted outrage from the political right and the powerful religious community.

how to cite an image in an essay

But for Alba and Edlira, it was a real expression of love, a cry for equality and, as far as they know, the first wedding of its kind in the Muslim-majority Balkan country.

“There are two people in love ... and now they have finalised it with this beautiful ceremony,” Edlira said after the wedding. “Society will never be ready ... What does this mean? That I cannot live?”

how to cite an image in an essay

While much of western Europe has made strides towards marriage equality, governments in much of the centre and east oppose change.

In Albania, religion was prohibited for half a century under communism. Today, the country is known for its tolerance among Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox Christians. These faiths are united in their opposition to same-sex marriage.

When plans for the couple’s wedding became public, social media was flooded with thousands of threatening comments. Police officers guarded the building during the ceremony.

Two days later, opposition parties held a protest against the mayor over separate corruption allegations. But the speakers turned on Alba and Edlira too, accusing them of destroying family values.

how to cite an image in an essay

The furore over the wedding was just the latest stage in what the couple say has been a long struggle to get the same rights as heterosexual couples.

When their daughters were born three years ago, the couple said they both wanted to be registered as parents, but that was not allowed under law. The children are registered under Edlira, the biological mother.

“Our society is very patriarchal and homophobic,” Alba said before the wedding. “If you see comments on Facebook or Instagram ... you will see how little tolerance we have as a nation.”

how to cite an image in an essay

One of her twin daughters hugs Edlira as their dog Rainy looks at her empty plate, during breakfast at home in Tirana, Albania, May 18, 2024. REUTERS/Florion Goga

how to cite an image in an essay

Alba does her daughter’s hair at home in Tirana, Albania, May 18, 2024.  REUTERS/Florion Goga

how to cite an image in an essay

Alba, Edlira and their twin daughters have breakfast at home in Tirana, Albania, May 18, 2024. REUTERS/Florion Goga

how to cite an image in an essay

Alba and one of her twin daughters play at home in Tirana, Albania, May 18, 2024.  REUTERS/Florion Goga

how to cite an image in an essay

Edlira and one of her twin daughters feed their cat Pufi through the window of their apartment, in Tirana, Albania, May 18, 2024. REUTERS/Florion Goga

how to cite an image in an essay

Alba and Edlira pick up their twin daughters from nursery in Tirana, Albania, May 17, 2024. REUTERS/Florion Goga

how to cite an image in an essay

Alba picks up one of her twin daughters, at a park in Tirana, Albania, May 18, 2024.  REUTERS/Florion Goga

how to cite an image in an essay

Alba inflates balloons for her twin daughters as Edlira laughs, a day before their wedding ceremony, at home in Tirana, Albania, May 18, 2024. REUTERS/Florion Goga

how to cite an image in an essay

Alba and Edlira make arrangements for their wedding, a day before the ceremony, at home in Tirana, Albania, May 18, 2024.  REUTERS/Florion Goga

how to cite an image in an essay

Alba and Edlira’s twin daughters play at their apartment in Tirana, Albania, May 18, 2024.  REUTERS/Florion Goga

Amid the struggle, the wedding became a bright spot. To prepare, the family blew up balloons in their apartment. On the evening of the ceremony, friends helped the couple into their big white wedding dresses.

They walked, holding their daughters’ hands, towards the altar through a crowd of friends who threw white rose petals. Around them were the sights of downtown Tirana and mountains beyond, covered in mist.

They were wed by two British pastors.

“We are fighting against 90 percent of the population,” Edlira said. “Both of us are changing a lot of things.”

how to cite an image in an essay

The Wider Image

Photography: Florion Goga

Writing: Fatos Bytyci and Florion Goga

Photo editing and design: Marta Montana Gomez and Maye-E Wong

Text editing: Edward McAllister and Andrew Heavens

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Home / Guides / Citation Guides / APA Format / How to Cite a Picture or Image in APA

How to Cite a Picture or Image in APA

Referencing visual media in your research paper, thesis, or dissertation can be an engaging and effective way to support your argument. Photographs, paintings, infographics, and maps are only a few examples of the many types of visual content that can be included.

In this guide, you will learn how to create accurate APA citations for digital images, infographics, maps, and even artwork from museums. The information from this guide comes from the 7th edition of Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (Chapter 10, Section 10.14).

Looking to cite a different type of media, like an audio recording or a radio interview? EasyBib.com has citing tools that can help! There are also other guides on these different media types, like how to cite a movie in APA and how to cite a YouTube video in APA .

Guides Overview

Here is an overview of everything this page includes:

  • Citing vs. ‘Reproducing’

Citing a digital image or photograph

Citing an image from a museum or a museum website, citing an infographic, citing a map, citing a map from google maps, citing powerpoint slides, citing lecture notes, citing clip art or a stock image.

  • What you need

Citing vs. ‘reproducing’

This guide provides information on how to cite images and photographs. However, reproducing the image inside of your essay or research paper might require additional permissions and/or attributions. Section 12.15 of the Publication Manual provides more information on reproducing images and graphics.

Creating an APA 7 citation for a digital image is easy. In the following example, we are going to show you how to cite a digital image found online.

Note: In the above example, the photograph is not presented with a title. For untitled photographs, a description of the photo is included inside of square brackets in the place of the title. 

The following citation structure can be used for all types of museum artwork, including paintings, photographs, drawings, and even sculptures.

Note: If you accessed an image through a museum’s website or online collection, then include the URL at the end of the reference entry.

According to APA 7, infographics are treated identically to any other type of image or photograph. Infographics tend to include all the necessary reference information within the image itself, usually in the bottom corner.

Dynamically created maps like those generated by Google Maps do not have titles, so  the map must be cited with a clear description in brackets, as well as a retrieval date ( Publication manual , p.347).

Note: Some Google Maps links can get unnecessarily long. Link shortener services like Bitly and Ow.ly allow users to create shortened links that will make your references list cleaner and easier to look at. 

Note: Include the learning management system name and URL when you are writing for an audience that does not have 

Note: No citation is necessary for clip art from Microsoft Word or Microsoft PowerPoint ( Publication manual , p. 346)

Here’s a quick video overview of how to cite an image or picture in APA:

What You Need

The guidelines for citing visual works are detailed in section 10.14 of the APA handbook and include a number of different images and source types. In every case, the following information is required:

  • Name of author, artist, or photographer
  • Date of publication or creation
  • Title of work
  • A bracketed description of media type (e.g., [Photograph] or [Painting])
  • Publisher, production company, or museum name
  • Location of publisher (if it is from a museum or university)
  • URL if accessed online

For most images sourced online, the above information is easily accessible and usually provided alongside the image.

For digital images, using Google’s reverse image search is an effective way to determine the creator and creation date of a particular image.

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

Cambridge University Press. (1912). Historical map of the religious divisions of Germany c. 1610 [Map]. Emerson Kent. https://www.emersonkent.com/map_archive/germany_1610.htm

Google. (n.d.). [Google Maps directions for driving from Auckland to Wellington, New Zealand]. Retrieved June 13, 2020 from https://bit.ly/37wTTvx

Lutz, E. (2014). An animated chart of 42 North American butterflies [Infographic]. Tabletop Whale. https://tabletopwhale.com/2014/08/27/42-butterflies-of-north-america.html

Monet, C. (c. 1900) Waterloo bridge [Painting]. Denver Art Museum, Colorado, United States.

Stone, M. (2020). [Picture of fireflies at night in Congaree National Park] [Photograph]. National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/06/synchronous-fireflies-rare-look-congaree-national-park/#/fireflies-congaree-1994.jpg

Published 20, 2012. Updated June 23, 2020.

Written and edited by Michele Kirschenbaum and Elise Barbeau . Michele Kirschenbaum is a school library media specialist and the in-house librarian at EasyBib. You can find her here on Twitter. Elise Barbeau is the Citation Specialist at Chegg. She has worked in digital marketing, libraries, and publishing.

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You will need the name of the image creator, the image title or an image description, the year of publication, the name of the publisher or website, and the URL (if it’s online). Here are two examples:

MLA : Johnson, Herbert. Critical Moments . 1921. Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/resource/acd.2a09222/.

APA : Johnson, H. (1921). Critical moments [Photograph]. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/resource/acd.2a09222/

See this guide for more information on citing an image in APA .

To cite an image in APA style, it is important that you know some basic information such as the name of the photographer or artist, title of the image, publisher/museum/gallery, and/or URL (uniform resource locator). The templates for in-text citations and reference list entries of an image along with examples are given below:

In-text citation template and examples:

Author Surname (Publication Year)

Watkins (1867)

Parenthetical:

(Author Surname, Publication Year)

(Watkins, 1867)

Reference list entry template and example:

Author Surname, F. M. (Publication Year). Title of the image [Medium]. Name of the Museum, location of museum. URL

Watkins, C. E. (1867). View on the Columbia, cascades [Photograph]. The Met, New York, NY, United States. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/262612

You need to set the title of the image in italics and sentence case. The medium of the image should be set inside square brackets after the title. Do not give a period after the URL.

To cite an image with no author in APA style, it is important that you know some basic information such as the title of the image, publication year, publisher/museum/gallery, and/or URL (uniform resource locator). The templates for in-text citations and reference list entries of an image along with examples are given below:

If the work does not have an author, cite the source by its title or a shortened version using the first word or two. For example, a parenthetical citation might look like this:

( Title of the Image , publication year)

( Parliament, Vienna, Austro-Hungary , ca. 1890)

Title of the image . (Publication Year). [Medium]. Name of museum/gallery, location. URL

Parliament, Vienna, Austro-Hungary. (ca. 1890). [Photograph]. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., United States. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002708394/

You need to set the title of the image in italics and sentence case. The medium of the image should be set inside square brackets after the date. Do not give a period after the URL.

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Why the Pandemic Probably Started in a Lab, in 5 Key Points

how to cite an image in an essay

By Alina Chan

Dr. Chan is a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, and a co-author of “Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.”

This article has been updated to reflect news developments.

On Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci returned to the halls of Congress and testified before the House subcommittee investigating the Covid-19 pandemic. He was questioned about several topics related to the government’s handling of Covid-19, including how the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which he directed until retiring in 2022, supported risky virus work at a Chinese institute whose research may have caused the pandemic.

For more than four years, reflexive partisan politics have derailed the search for the truth about a catastrophe that has touched us all. It has been estimated that at least 25 million people around the world have died because of Covid-19, with over a million of those deaths in the United States.

Although how the pandemic started has been hotly debated, a growing volume of evidence — gleaned from public records released under the Freedom of Information Act, digital sleuthing through online databases, scientific papers analyzing the virus and its spread, and leaks from within the U.S. government — suggests that the pandemic most likely occurred because a virus escaped from a research lab in Wuhan, China. If so, it would be the most costly accident in the history of science.

Here’s what we now know:

1 The SARS-like virus that caused the pandemic emerged in Wuhan, the city where the world’s foremost research lab for SARS-like viruses is located.

  • At the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a team of scientists had been hunting for SARS-like viruses for over a decade, led by Shi Zhengli.
  • Their research showed that the viruses most similar to SARS‑CoV‑2, the virus that caused the pandemic, circulate in bats that live r oughly 1,000 miles away from Wuhan. Scientists from Dr. Shi’s team traveled repeatedly to Yunnan province to collect these viruses and had expanded their search to Southeast Asia. Bats in other parts of China have not been found to carry viruses that are as closely related to SARS-CoV-2.

how to cite an image in an essay

The closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2 were found in southwestern China and in Laos.

Large cities

Mine in Yunnan province

Cave in Laos

South China Sea

how to cite an image in an essay

The closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2

were found in southwestern China and in Laos.

philippines

how to cite an image in an essay

The closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2 were found

in southwestern China and Laos.

Sources: Sarah Temmam et al., Nature; SimpleMaps

Note: Cities shown have a population of at least 200,000.

how to cite an image in an essay

There are hundreds of large cities in China and Southeast Asia.

how to cite an image in an essay

There are hundreds of large cities in China

and Southeast Asia.

how to cite an image in an essay

The pandemic started roughly 1,000 miles away, in Wuhan, home to the world’s foremost SARS-like virus research lab.

how to cite an image in an essay

The pandemic started roughly 1,000 miles away,

in Wuhan, home to the world’s foremost SARS-like virus research lab.

how to cite an image in an essay

The pandemic started roughly 1,000 miles away, in Wuhan,

home to the world’s foremost SARS-like virus research lab.

  • Even at hot spots where these viruses exist naturally near the cave bats of southwestern China and Southeast Asia, the scientists argued, as recently as 2019 , that bat coronavirus spillover into humans is rare .
  • When the Covid-19 outbreak was detected, Dr. Shi initially wondered if the novel coronavirus had come from her laboratory , saying she had never expected such an outbreak to occur in Wuhan.
  • The SARS‑CoV‑2 virus is exceptionally contagious and can jump from species to species like wildfire . Yet it left no known trace of infection at its source or anywhere along what would have been a thousand-mile journey before emerging in Wuhan.

2 The year before the outbreak, the Wuhan institute, working with U.S. partners, had proposed creating viruses with SARS‑CoV‑2’s defining feature.

  • Dr. Shi’s group was fascinated by how coronaviruses jump from species to species. To find viruses, they took samples from bats and other animals , as well as from sick people living near animals carrying these viruses or associated with the wildlife trade. Much of this work was conducted in partnership with the EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based scientific organization that, since 2002, has been awarded over $80 million in federal funding to research the risks of emerging infectious diseases.
  • The laboratory pursued risky research that resulted in viruses becoming more infectious : Coronaviruses were grown from samples from infected animals and genetically reconstructed and recombined to create new viruses unknown in nature. These new viruses were passed through cells from bats, pigs, primates and humans and were used to infect civets and humanized mice (mice modified with human genes). In essence, this process forced these viruses to adapt to new host species, and the viruses with mutations that allowed them to thrive emerged as victors.
  • By 2019, Dr. Shi’s group had published a database describing more than 22,000 collected wildlife samples. But external access was shut off in the fall of 2019, and the database was not shared with American collaborators even after the pandemic started , when such a rich virus collection would have been most useful in tracking the origin of SARS‑CoV‑2. It remains unclear whether the Wuhan institute possessed a precursor of the pandemic virus.
  • In 2021, The Intercept published a leaked 2018 grant proposal for a research project named Defuse , which had been written as a collaboration between EcoHealth, the Wuhan institute and Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina, who had been on the cutting edge of coronavirus research for years. The proposal described plans to create viruses strikingly similar to SARS‑CoV‑2.
  • Coronaviruses bear their name because their surface is studded with protein spikes, like a spiky crown, which they use to enter animal cells. T he Defuse project proposed to search for and create SARS-like viruses carrying spikes with a unique feature: a furin cleavage site — the same feature that enhances SARS‑CoV‑2’s infectiousness in humans, making it capable of causing a pandemic. Defuse was never funded by the United States . However, in his testimony on Monday, Dr. Fauci explained that the Wuhan institute would not need to rely on U.S. funding to pursue research independently.

how to cite an image in an essay

The Wuhan lab ran risky experiments to learn about how SARS-like viruses might infect humans.

1. Collect SARS-like viruses from bats and other wild animals, as well as from people exposed to them.

how to cite an image in an essay

2. Identify high-risk viruses by screening for spike proteins that facilitate infection of human cells.

how to cite an image in an essay

2. Identify high-risk viruses by screening for spike proteins that facilitate infection of

human cells.

how to cite an image in an essay

In Defuse, the scientists proposed to add a furin cleavage site to the spike protein.

3. Create new coronaviruses by inserting spike proteins or other features that could make the viruses more infectious in humans.

how to cite an image in an essay

4. Infect human cells, civets and humanized mice with the new coronaviruses, to determine how dangerous they might be.

how to cite an image in an essay

  • While it’s possible that the furin cleavage site could have evolved naturally (as seen in some distantly related coronaviruses), out of the hundreds of SARS-like viruses cataloged by scientists, SARS‑CoV‑2 is the only one known to possess a furin cleavage site in its spike. And the genetic data suggest that the virus had only recently gained the furin cleavage site before it started the pandemic.
  • Ultimately, a never-before-seen SARS-like virus with a newly introduced furin cleavage site, matching the description in the Wuhan institute’s Defuse proposal, caused an outbreak in Wuhan less than two years after the proposal was drafted.
  • When the Wuhan scientists published their seminal paper about Covid-19 as the pandemic roared to life in 2020, they did not mention the virus’s furin cleavage site — a feature they should have been on the lookout for, according to their own grant proposal, and a feature quickly recognized by other scientists.
  • Worse still, as the pandemic raged, their American collaborators failed to publicly reveal the existence of the Defuse proposal. The president of EcoHealth, Peter Daszak, recently admitted to Congress that he doesn’t know about virus samples collected by the Wuhan institute after 2015 and never asked the lab’s scientists if they had started the work described in Defuse. In May, citing failures in EcoHealth’s monitoring of risky experiments conducted at the Wuhan lab, the Biden administration suspended all federal funding for the organization and Dr. Daszak, and initiated proceedings to bar them from receiving future grants. In his testimony on Monday, Dr. Fauci said that he supported the decision to suspend and bar EcoHealth.
  • Separately, Dr. Baric described the competitive dynamic between his research group and the institute when he told Congress that the Wuhan scientists would probably not have shared their most interesting newly discovered viruses with him . Documents and email correspondence between the institute and Dr. Baric are still being withheld from the public while their release is fiercely contested in litigation.
  • In the end, American partners very likely knew of only a fraction of the research done in Wuhan. According to U.S. intelligence sources, some of the institute’s virus research was classified or conducted with or on behalf of the Chinese military . In the congressional hearing on Monday, Dr. Fauci repeatedly acknowledged the lack of visibility into experiments conducted at the Wuhan institute, saying, “None of us can know everything that’s going on in China, or in Wuhan, or what have you. And that’s the reason why — I say today, and I’ve said at the T.I.,” referring to his transcribed interview with the subcommittee, “I keep an open mind as to what the origin is.”

3 The Wuhan lab pursued this type of work under low biosafety conditions that could not have contained an airborne virus as infectious as SARS‑CoV‑2.

  • Labs working with live viruses generally operate at one of four biosafety levels (known in ascending order of stringency as BSL-1, 2, 3 and 4) that describe the work practices that are considered sufficiently safe depending on the characteristics of each pathogen. The Wuhan institute’s scientists worked with SARS-like viruses under inappropriately low biosafety conditions .

how to cite an image in an essay

In the United States, virologists generally use stricter Biosafety Level 3 protocols when working with SARS-like viruses.

Biosafety cabinets prevent

viral particles from escaping.

Viral particles

Personal respirators provide

a second layer of defense against breathing in the virus.

DIRECT CONTACT

Gloves prevent skin contact.

Disposable wraparound

gowns cover much of the rest of the body.

how to cite an image in an essay

Personal respirators provide a second layer of defense against breathing in the virus.

Disposable wraparound gowns

cover much of the rest of the body.

Note: ​​Biosafety levels are not internationally standardized, and some countries use more permissive protocols than others.

how to cite an image in an essay

The Wuhan lab had been regularly working with SARS-like viruses under Biosafety Level 2 conditions, which could not prevent a highly infectious virus like SARS-CoV-2 from escaping.

Some work is done in the open air, and masks are not required.

Less protective equipment provides more opportunities

for contamination.

how to cite an image in an essay

Some work is done in the open air,

and masks are not required.

Less protective equipment provides more opportunities for contamination.

  • In one experiment, Dr. Shi’s group genetically engineered an unexpectedly deadly SARS-like virus (not closely related to SARS‑CoV‑2) that exhibited a 10,000-fold increase in the quantity of virus in the lungs and brains of humanized mice . Wuhan institute scientists handled these live viruses at low biosafet y levels , including BSL-2.
  • Even the much more stringent containment at BSL-3 cannot fully prevent SARS‑CoV‑2 from escaping . Two years into the pandemic, the virus infected a scientist in a BSL-3 laboratory in Taiwan, which was, at the time, a zero-Covid country. The scientist had been vaccinated and was tested only after losing the sense of smell. By then, more than 100 close contacts had been exposed. Human error is a source of exposure even at the highest biosafety levels , and the risks are much greater for scientists working with infectious pathogens at low biosafety.
  • An early draft of the Defuse proposal stated that the Wuhan lab would do their virus work at BSL-2 to make it “highly cost-effective.” Dr. Baric added a note to the draft highlighting the importance of using BSL-3 to contain SARS-like viruses that could infect human cells, writing that “U.S. researchers will likely freak out.” Years later, after SARS‑CoV‑2 had killed millions, Dr. Baric wrote to Dr. Daszak : “I have no doubt that they followed state determined rules and did the work under BSL-2. Yes China has the right to set their own policy. You believe this was appropriate containment if you want but don’t expect me to believe it. Moreover, don’t insult my intelligence by trying to feed me this load of BS.”
  • SARS‑CoV‑2 is a stealthy virus that transmits effectively through the air, causes a range of symptoms similar to those of other common respiratory diseases and can be spread by infected people before symptoms even appear. If the virus had escaped from a BSL-2 laboratory in 2019, the leak most likely would have gone undetected until too late.
  • One alarming detail — leaked to The Wall Street Journal and confirmed by current and former U.S. government officials — is that scientists on Dr. Shi’s team fell ill with Covid-like symptoms in the fall of 2019 . One of the scientists had been named in the Defuse proposal as the person in charge of virus discovery work. The scientists denied having been sick .

4 The hypothesis that Covid-19 came from an animal at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan is not supported by strong evidence.

  • In December 2019, Chinese investigators assumed the outbreak had started at a centrally located market frequented by thousands of visitors daily. This bias in their search for early cases meant that cases unlinked to or located far away from the market would very likely have been missed. To make things worse, the Chinese authorities blocked the reporting of early cases not linked to the market and, claiming biosafety precautions, ordered the destruction of patient samples on January 3, 2020, making it nearly impossible to see the complete picture of the earliest Covid-19 cases. Information about dozens of early cases from November and December 2019 remains inaccessible.
  • A pair of papers published in Science in 2022 made the best case for SARS‑CoV‑2 having emerged naturally from human-animal contact at the Wuhan market by focusing on a map of the early cases and asserting that the virus had jumped from animals into humans twice at the market in 2019. More recently, the two papers have been countered by other virologists and scientists who convincingly demonstrate that the available market evidence does not distinguish between a human superspreader event and a natural spillover at the market.
  • Furthermore, the existing genetic and early case data show that all known Covid-19 cases probably stem from a single introduction of SARS‑CoV‑2 into people, and the outbreak at the Wuhan market probably happened after the virus had already been circulating in humans.

how to cite an image in an essay

An analysis of SARS-CoV-2’s evolutionary tree shows how the virus evolved as it started to spread through humans.

SARS-COV-2 Viruses closest

to bat coronaviruses

more mutations

how to cite an image in an essay

Source: Lv et al., Virus Evolution (2024) , as reproduced by Jesse Bloom

how to cite an image in an essay

The viruses that infected people linked to the market were most likely not the earliest form of the virus that started the pandemic.

how to cite an image in an essay

  • Not a single infected animal has ever been confirmed at the market or in its supply chain. Without good evidence that the pandemic started at the Huanan Seafood Market, the fact that the virus emerged in Wuhan points squarely at its unique SARS-like virus laboratory.

5 Key evidence that would be expected if the virus had emerged from the wildlife trade is still missing.

how to cite an image in an essay

In previous outbreaks of coronaviruses, scientists were able to demonstrate natural origin by collecting multiple pieces of evidence linking infected humans to infected animals.

Infected animals

Earliest known

cases exposed to

live animals

Antibody evidence

of animals and

animal traders having

been infected

Ancestral variants

of the virus found in

Documented trade

of host animals

between the area

where bats carry

closely related viruses

and the outbreak site

how to cite an image in an essay

Infected animals found

Earliest known cases exposed to live animals

Antibody evidence of animals and animal

traders having been infected

Ancestral variants of the virus found in animals

Documented trade of host animals

between the area where bats carry closely

related viruses and the outbreak site

how to cite an image in an essay

For SARS-CoV-2, these same key pieces of evidence are still missing , more than four years after the virus emerged.

how to cite an image in an essay

For SARS-CoV-2, these same key pieces of evidence are still missing ,

more than four years after the virus emerged.

  • Despite the intense search trained on the animal trade and people linked to the market, investigators have not reported finding any animals infected with SARS‑CoV‑2 that had not been infected by humans. Yet, infected animal sources and other connective pieces of evidence were found for the earlier SARS and MERS outbreaks as quickly as within a few days, despite the less advanced viral forensic technologies of two decades ago.
  • Even though Wuhan is the home base of virus hunters with world-leading expertise in tracking novel SARS-like viruses, investigators have either failed to collect or report key evidence that would be expected if Covid-19 emerged from the wildlife trade . For example, investigators have not determined that the earliest known cases had exposure to intermediate host animals before falling ill. No antibody evidence shows that animal traders in Wuhan are regularly exposed to SARS-like viruses, as would be expected in such situations.
  • With today’s technology, scientists can detect how respiratory viruses — including SARS, MERS and the flu — circulate in animals while making repeated attempts to jump across species . Thankfully, these variants usually fail to transmit well after crossing over to a new species and tend to die off after a small number of infections. In contrast, virologists and other scientists agree that SARS‑CoV‑2 required little to no adaptation to spread rapidly in humans and other animals . The virus appears to have succeeded in causing a pandemic upon its only detected jump into humans.

The pandemic could have been caused by any of hundreds of virus species, at any of tens of thousands of wildlife markets, in any of thousands of cities, and in any year. But it was a SARS-like coronavirus with a unique furin cleavage site that emerged in Wuhan, less than two years after scientists, sometimes working under inadequate biosafety conditions, proposed collecting and creating viruses of that same design.

While several natural spillover scenarios remain plausible, and we still don’t know enough about the full extent of virus research conducted at the Wuhan institute by Dr. Shi’s team and other researchers, a laboratory accident is the most parsimonious explanation of how the pandemic began.

Given what we now know, investigators should follow their strongest leads and subpoena all exchanges between the Wuhan scientists and their international partners, including unpublished research proposals, manuscripts, data and commercial orders. In particular, exchanges from 2018 and 2019 — the critical two years before the emergence of Covid-19 — are very likely to be illuminating (and require no cooperation from the Chinese government to acquire), yet they remain beyond the public’s view more than four years after the pandemic began.

Whether the pandemic started on a lab bench or in a market stall, it is undeniable that U.S. federal funding helped to build an unprecedented collection of SARS-like viruses at the Wuhan institute, as well as contributing to research that enhanced them . Advocates and funders of the institute’s research, including Dr. Fauci, should cooperate with the investigation to help identify and close the loopholes that allowed such dangerous work to occur. The world must not continue to bear the intolerable risks of research with the potential to cause pandemics .

A successful investigation of the pandemic’s root cause would have the power to break a decades-long scientific impasse on pathogen research safety, determining how governments will spend billions of dollars to prevent future pandemics. A credible investigation would also deter future acts of negligence and deceit by demonstrating that it is indeed possible to be held accountable for causing a viral pandemic. Last but not least, people of all nations need to see their leaders — and especially, their scientists — heading the charge to find out what caused this world-shaking event. Restoring public trust in science and government leadership requires it.

A thorough investigation by the U.S. government could unearth more evidence while spurring whistleblowers to find their courage and seek their moment of opportunity. It would also show the world that U.S. leaders and scientists are not afraid of what the truth behind the pandemic may be.

More on how the pandemic may have started

how to cite an image in an essay

Where Did the Coronavirus Come From? What We Already Know Is Troubling.

Even if the coronavirus did not emerge from a lab, the groundwork for a potential disaster had been laid for years, and learning its lessons is essential to preventing others.

By Zeynep Tufekci

how to cite an image in an essay

Why Does Bad Science on Covid’s Origin Get Hyped?

If the raccoon dog was a smoking gun, it fired blanks.

By David Wallace-Wells

how to cite an image in an essay

A Plea for Making Virus Research Safer

A way forward for lab safety.

By Jesse Bloom

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

Alina Chan ( @ayjchan ) is a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, and a co-author of “ Viral : The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.” She was a member of the Pathogens Project , which the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists organized to generate new thinking on responsible, high-risk pathogen research.

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  1. How to Cite an Image in MLA

    If you include an image directly in your paper, it should be labeled "Fig." (short for "Figure"), given a number, and presented in the MLA figure format. Directly below the image, place a centered caption starting with the figure label and number (e.g. "Fig. 2"), then a period. For the rest of the caption, you have two options:

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    Learn how to cite an image in APA Style with the creator, year, title, format and source information. See examples of online and offline images, and how to include them as figures in your paper.

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    MLA Style. MLA Caption Style. When citing an image, the caption should be labeled as Figure (usually abbreviated Fig.), assigned a number, and given a title or caption. For images found in a book or journal, include the publication information of the text. A caption ordinarily appears directly below the illustration and have the same one-inch ...

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    Examples. See the two different ways you could use the image below in a presentation, and how the citing would differ. Option 1: If the image below is on a slide about massage therapists, but you don't directly talk about the image, then you'd include the full citation information in the caption for the image. See below. Fig. 1: Cuttingham, Alyssa.

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    In MLA referencing, you can cite an image in two ways: Using the author or editor of the container volume; Using the creator of the original image; The general format is similar in both cases, but we will separate them below. Referencing an Image via the Container Volume. One way to cite an image in MLA is to cite the container volume (i.e. the ...

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    Citing Images. • All images, referred to in the text or reproduced in an essay, assignment or presentation, must be cited and included in your works cited list. • When referring to an image in the text of your essay, give a short citation consisting of the name of the artist (s), creator (s) or author (s), and, if appropriate, the relevant ...

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    To insert an image into the text using Microsoft Word: Place the cursor where you want to add a picture. Go to Insert > Pictures. Click on This Device to add pictures from your own computer or select Online Pictures to search for a picture from the internet. Select the image you wish to use and click Insert.

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    These are her instructions. Cite all work using APA or MLA. Double space, font size 12, Times Roman font. A good paper will be 3 pages, not including photos (place your photos at the end) No heading or title whatsoever! iLearn does that for you already. Any help is greatly appreciated.

  14. How to Cite a Picture or Image in MLA

    Here's the standard structure for a digital image citation found on a website. It follows guidance found in the MLA Style Center. Works Cited. Structure. Image Creator's Last Name, First Name. "Image Title.". Website Name, Day Month Year Published, URL. Example. de Jong, Sidsel.

  15. How do I include an image in my paper in Chicago style?

    In Chicago style, when you don't just refer to an image but actually include it in your (research) paper, the image should be formatted as a figure. Place the figure before or after the first paragraph where it is mentioned. Refer to figures by their numbers in the text (e.g., "see fig. 1"). Below the figure, place a caption providing the ...

  16. Citing Images

    Citing Images. Just like you would cite any textual source you use in a project or paper, you should give proper attribution for any images you include. Each discipline has slightly different requirements, so check with your professor. The basic information you should always note includes: the title. the artist/photographer/creator.

  17. Citing and referencing: Data/Figures/Images

    *cite details and URL of location (e.g. web page) on which the image was viewed. Paraphrasing - Author prominent. Cattani's (2011) photograph of Christian the lion in his owners‟ showroom is part of a series. Paraphrasing - Information prominent: A lion photographed in a London showroom by Cattani (2011) has been used to generate income.

  18. How to Cite Sources

    The Chicago/Turabian style of citing sources is generally used when citing sources for humanities papers, and is best known for its requirement that writers place bibliographic citations at the bottom of a page (in Chicago-format footnotes) or at the end of a paper (endnotes). The Turabian and Chicago citation styles are almost identical, but ...

  19. How to Cite an Image in Chicago Footnote Referencing

    How to Cite an Image in Chicago Footnote Referencing. If you are simply mentioning an image in the text of an essay - not reproducing it in the essay itself - you can simply add a footnote citation for the source: We see this in the first illustration in the book.1. The exact format for the citation will depend on where you found the image.

  20. When to Use an Image in an Essay: What You Need to Know

    It's acceptable to add an image in an essay to illustrate an argument for more clarity. Images can be useful when explaining a process, showing an example, or in the instance when you want to grab your reader's attention. Be advised that you must follow the accepted citation rules when including an image in the essay.

  21. MLA In-Text Citations

    An in-text citation is a reference to a source that is found within the text of a paper ( Handbook 227). This tells a reader that an idea, quote, or paraphrase originated from a source. MLA in-text citations usually include the last name of the author and the location of cited information. This guide focuses on how to create MLA in-text ...

  22. Welcome to the Purdue Online Writing Lab

    Mission. The Purdue On-Campus Writing Lab and Purdue Online Writing Lab assist clients in their development as writers—no matter what their skill level—with on-campus consultations, online participation, and community engagement. The Purdue Writing Lab serves the Purdue, West Lafayette, campus and coordinates with local literacy initiatives.

  23. How to Cite an Image or Photo in MLA Format

    If you viewed the image in person, use this formula to cite images in MLA format: Last name of creator, First name. Image title. Year of origin, Name of museum or gallery, Location. When formatted correctly, it should look like this: Klimt, Gustav. The Kiss. 1909, The Belvedere, Vienna.

  24. Fairness & Privacy in an Age of Generative AI

    This Essay will discuss the types of fairness and privacy concerns that generative AI raises and the existing landscape of legal protections under anti-discrimination law and privacy law to address these concerns. This Essay argues that the proliferation of generative AI raises challenging and novel questions around (i) what protections should ...

  25. Want To Get Into The Ivy League? Here's How Long The ...

    Corbis via Getty Images. While the college admissions process begins in earnest during a student's junior year of high school, a standout college admissions profile is the result of years of ...

  26. In Albania, two women take on a nation with a rooftop wedding

    The Wider Image. Photography: Florion Goga. Writing: Fatos Bytyci and Florion Goga. Photo editing and design: Marta Montana Gomez and Maye-E Wong. Text editing: Edward McAllister and Andrew Heavens.

  27. How to Cite a Picture or Image in APA

    Creating an APA 7 citation for a digital image is easy. In the following example, we are going to show you how to cite a digital image found online. Reference Page. Structure. Author last name, First initial. (Publication or creation date). Title of image [Type of media].

  28. Why the Pandemic Probably Started in a Lab, in 5 Key Points

    Dr. Chan is a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, and a co-author of "Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19." This article has been updated to reflect news ...

  29. Divine Command Theory: An Examination of Morality and Religion: [Essay

    Divine Command Theory (DCT) is a meta-ethical theory that posits morality is ultimately grounded in the commands or character of a divine being, typically... read full [Essay Sample] for free