APA Image Citation – Understanding The Format

Navigating the complexities of valid APA citations can be challenging enough with text-based sources alone. When introducing images into your work, you encounter an entyrely new level of intricacy that must be skilfully handled to align with the APA’s referencing guidelines. Fortunately, there’s no reason to be alarmed, as APA examples can be particularly helpful in this context. In this post, we will demystify APA image citation by providing clear guidance and APA examples. This will not only ease your concerns but also enhance the overall quality of your writing by ensuring proper adherence to APA standards.

Definition: APA Image Citation

As we hinted at in the introduction, APA image citations are – at least on paper – far from straightforward, in terms of both content and construction. The first bullet point below provides the baseline format whilst the following two points add some real-world context in the form of a sample APA image citation for George Stubbs’ famous painting Whistlejacket.

Additionally, you’ll also need to ensure that the subject of your APA image citation is included as a figure within the text, but more on what that actually means later.

APA Image Citation: Accessed Online

The APA image citation is constructed very similarly for images sourced from the web, but there are nonetheless some slight differences in content that warrant highlighting here. Much of the information is the same as in the prior example, though as seen in the first bullet point below you must also include the name of the website and a direct URL for the image. The second two points provide a real-world example, this time in the form of a reference to the image-sharing website Flickr.

Missing Information

Although completeness is the goal of any good APA image citation, you may find in actuality that not all the information you need is readily available. If your image has no title, provide instead a brief description contained within square brackets, whilst dateless sources should be labelled ‘n.d.’ and appended with a date-of-access. For works with no established author, revert to the title or, failing that, a description as before:

Untitled & Missing Publication Date:

• Reference Entry: Bloggs, J. (n.d.). [photograph of sun setting over Manhattan skyline]. Retrieved 9th August 2022. https://somewebsite.com.
• In-Text Citation: (Bloggs, n.d.)

Missing Creator Information:

• Reference Entry: [Photograph of sun setting over Manhattan skyline]. (2022). https://somewebsite.com.
• In-Text Citation: ([Manhattan sunset], 2022)

APA Image Citation: Viewed In-Person

The only real difference to be mindful of when doing an APA image citation for something that you viewed in person (as opposed to found online) is the need for provision of geographical information indicating where the image was originally observed. As in the first bullet point below, this information comes at the end of the reference. The second bullet point demonstrates the degree of detail that you should aim to provide:

APA Image Citation: Including Images as Figures

Using images in your paper requires more thought than just pasting it onto the page and calling it day: any image that you use should be included as a figure in line with APA style guidelines. In practice, this means pairing the image with contextualizing information, helping ensure proper attribution whilst also establishing its provenance. Rather than a standard in-text citation, the APA image citation provides this detail in the form of a copyright attribution. This structure is broken down further below:

It is also necessary to produce a corresponding reference entry for your figures, formatted as per the APA standard. Additionally, though it is not an APA requirement, you may find including a List of Figures will help your audience’s understanding of your paper. This should come at the beginning, after the Contents but before the main body.