Finding, Citing, and Using Images
All images, photos, graphs, etc. in your essays should be directly relevant to your argument. Select images that will:
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Help your readers understand your point.
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Illustrate your ideas.
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Provide examples and evidence of your thesis.
Make direct references to your images in your essay. There are a few ways to do this:
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“An example of this style can be seen in Figure 1.”
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“This style was very ornate. (See example Figure 1)”
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“Many chairs of this era, particularly the chairs at Versailles (Figure 1), were very ornate.”
There are two ways to organize your images: place them in your text next to the paragraph where you discuss them (Figure 1), or put them all together at the end of the essay (Figure 2).
![](https://libapps.s3.amazonaws.com/accounts/329328/images/Screen_Shot_2024-01-17_at_5.38.07_PM.png)
Captions and Citations
Images always need captions. Captions should do two things; label the image and tell us the image’s source. Here's an example of downloading a high-resolution image and citation in a few clicks!
![](https://libapps.s3.amazonaws.com/accounts/329328/images/artsor-tutorial.gif)
![](https://libapps.s3.amazonaws.com/accounts/329328/images/Hammons-SnowBallSale-1983.jpg)
Alongside other street vendors, artist David Hammons sold snowballs outside of Cooper Union in 1983.
David Hammons. Snow Ball Sale. 1983. JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.14215831. Accessed 17 Jan. 2024.
Boston Architectural College, Learning Resource Center. Using and Citing Illustrations in Essays. 2015.