APA Citation Guide

How to Cite Images in APA Style

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Citing images

People are quite protective about their images and take badly to finding them used online without permission. Thankfully, the fair use doctrine allows both students and researchers to use copyrighted images without first having to acquire permission from the copyright owner. The faire use doctrine does not protect students from plagiarism, however. So images must still be fully referenced.

To cite an image, it is important to include the following:

  1. Creator’s name
  2. Year of publication (if available)
  3. Image’s title (or a description)
  4. Type of work
  5. Website title
  6. A URL

Based on the APA style guide, we recommend you use the following structure.

APA Image citation format:

Last name, initial. (Year). Image Title [Online Image]. Website title. URL.

Examples:

  • Colli, M. (2012). Guggenheim Museum Bilbao [Online Image]. Flickr. Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/52355315@N08/5757476385
  • Unknown. (Unknown). Goddess Hathor giving an Ankh to Nefertari [Online Image]. Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ankh_isis_nefertari.jpg
  • Crazzolara, T. (2018). Alpine Panorama [Online Image]. Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ankh_isis_nefertari.jpg