ENGL 165 Introduction to World Myth

A collection of resources for assignments commonly seen in ENGL165 at Green River College.

Giving credit

Thanks to Sarah Christensen, Visual Resources Curator at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and Jesse Hendersen, Visual Resources Curator at Colgate University, for graciously allowing me to copy text and other information from their library web pages.

Giving credit where credit is due

Citing Images

It is important to cite the sources you use. When using the library's databases, citations are often created for you. However, when searching the web, it is up to you to create a citation for your sources - including images.

This page has information about how to cite images and includes examples, as well as links to other websites where you can find more information about how to cite images.

Additional Information

Do also consider the linked guide (below) and the "MLA Citation Style (8th ed.) tab to the left

Citing Images in MLA Style

In your Works Cited, you'll want to include as much of the information below as you can:

  • Artist’s name or username, surname first
  • Title of the work, in italics
  • Date of creation
  • Institution or city in in which the work is located
  • Website or database, in italics
  • Medium of publication
  • Date of access

The citation will typically look like this:

Artist or user name.  Title.  Date the image was created.  Museum, City.  Web.  Database name or title of site.  Date of access.

Images and citations

In-Text Citations for Images

Just as you would always provide in-text citation information for copied text, you must for images and photographs!

According to the MLA Handbook, images within a research paper "should be labeled Figure (usually abbreviated Fig.), assigned an Arabic numeral, and given a caption. See the example below:

(click on image to enlarge)

Image of five men, as cited in the figure below

Fig. 4. Author Langston Hughes [far left] with [left to right:] Charles S. Johnson; E. Franklin Frazier; Rudolph Fisher and Hubert T. Delaney, on the roof of 580 St. Nicholas Avenue, Harlem, on the occasion of a party in Hughes' honor. 1924. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture / Photographs and Prints Division, New York. Web. New York Public Library Digital Gallery. 1 April 2011.

Images and copyright

Images and Fair Use

Images are intellectual property, too, and you need to give credit for them as you would textual information. Here are things to keep in mind when using images downloaded from the internet:
  • Always credit the source of your images.
  • Find out if the owner/creator of an image states how their image can be used, if possible.
  • Whenever possible, ask the copyright holder for permission and keep a record of this correspondence.
Under fair use guidelines, you may... 
  • Use images in course assignments such as a term paper, thesis or poster as per their degree fulfillment requirements.
  • Publicly display images incorporated in academic work when association with courses in which they are enrolled.
  • Retain work in personal portfolios for use in graduate school or employment applications, for example.
And you may not...
  • Publish images in any work in analog or digital form that do not have proper copyright clearance. When in doubt, consult the Four Factors of Fair Use.

Information above used with permission from the Colgate Visual Resources Library

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