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APA style guide: Image/Chart

Citing images: photos, cartoons, graphs, charts, etc.

General guidelines for citing an image:

  • Cite the image wherever you use it (caption, reference list, and, if required, in-text).

  • Reference list entry format:

    • Creator (author/organization).
    • (Year).
    • Title of image [italicized] or description in [square brackets and italics].
    • Site/Book/journal title or Source (if from a website, book, or periodical).
    • URL or DOI (if applicable).
  • If the image has no title, provide a brief description in square brackets (capitalize as a title).
  • If no author, move the title/description to the author position.
  • If no date is available, use (n.d.).
  • Always include a retrieval link for online images.
  • Images from books/journals should include full book/journal citation details and page number if identifiable.
  • In-text citation uses (Author, Year) or (“Description,” Year) if no author.

Important! If you have an image that you found using Google images, do not cite Google images as the source. Click on "view this image in its original context" and cite the web page where the image is published. The image url should never end in ".jpg".

A photograph in a book, with a title and a known author or news agency
In-text (New China News Agency, 1997)
References New China News Agency. (1997). Japanese tanks. In I. Chang (Ed.), The Rape of Nanking (p. 146). Basic Books.
 
A photograph in a book, with an unknown author and unknown title
In-text ([Photograph of solar eclipse], 2017)
References [Photograph of solar eclipse]. (2017). In S. Riley (Ed.), Earth’s Wonders (p. 45). Macmillan.
 
An image with an author and title found on a website
In-text (Lange, 1936)
References Lange, D. (1936). Migrant mother [Photograph]. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017768520/
 
A political cartoon without a title, found in a book
In-text ([Cartoon of Thomas Nast..., 1871)
References [Cartoon of Thomas Nast depicting Tweed]. (1871). In J. H. Smith, Political Cartoons of the 19th Century (p. 102). Academic Press.
  For an untitled political cartoon that includes text, use the first few words of the text within brackets. If the cartoon has no author and no text, describe it in two or three words and use that description as the title, skipping the author information.
 
A political cartoon found on a website
In-text (Oliphant, 2020) or ([Political cartoon of senators..., 2020)
References Oliphant, P. (2020, February 2). [Political cartoon of senators and impeachment] [Cartoon]. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/
  If you found your cartoon on a cartoonists' index such as Daryl Cagle, include the newspaper publication information but provide the url of the cartoon index, not the newspaper.
 
A graph printed in a newspaper, found in a subscription database
In-text (“Down 777.68 Points,” 2001)
References Down 777.68 Points [Graph]. (2001, September 30). Wall Street Journal, p. A1. Newsbank.
 
A chart from a scholarly journal, found in a subscription database
In-text (“Where Do You Stand,” 1998)
References Where Do You Stand [Chart]. (1998). Science, 280(5368), 1366. JSTOR.
 

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