Skip to Main Content

ARTF 1302: Basic Drawing: Cite Your Sources

A course guide to library research resources for Prof. McShane-Bolton's art students in Basic Drawing

Understanding a Journal Citation

You'll see something like this:

It's important to know the parts of a citation so you can interpret it correctly. You must have at least the Journal name, volume, issue, and page number to be able to locate the article.

Chicago Manual of Style Links

NOT CITING OR GIVING ATTRIBUTION TO AN IMAGE SOURCE IS A FORM OF VISUAL PLAGIARISM

Citing images:

These are the essential basic elements needed for citing or giving attribution to images (it is very important to cite/give attribution!):

  • artist's name, if known
  • title of image, if known
  • date work was created
  • and a URL back to where you found it

These are additional elements that you can list in the attribution or citation if you have them and to give more context and information for anyone who is interested in learning more about the image: 

  • if date is unknown, place n.d. were the date would go
  • permanent owner or institution where the artwork is housed
  • the location or city

How to Cite Images from Mississsippi State University

Copies of The Chicago manual of Style are also avaliable at the Alkek Library and the Music Library.

Citing Images Chicago Style from Colgate Visual Resources Library

_____________________________________________

Or if you would like to use another style you can look at other Writing & Citation Style Guides such as APA, MLA. ASA, IEEE.

ASA Image Citation

MLA Style Guide from Purdue

Other MLA resources

Print copies of the MLA Handbook are available for checkout

To see examples of how to cite images in MLA, see the An Image (Including a Painting, Sculpture, or Photograph) entry or the A Painting, Sculpture, or Photograph entry from Purdue's Online Writing Lab.

Citing images in APA from the APA Style Blog

IEEE Style

IEEE Editorial Style Manual (Online)

From The Chicago Manual of Style 16th edition

3.22 Formal titles in captions

Frontispiece of Christian Prayers and Meditations (London: John Daye, 1569), showing Queen Elizabeth at prayer in her private chapel. Reproduced by permission of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Trustees of the Lambeth Palace Library.
 
The head of Venus—a detail from Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.
 
Francis Bedford, Stratford on Avon Church from the Avon, 1860s. Albumen print of collodion negative, 18.8 × 28.0 cm. Rochester, International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House.
 
Friedrich Overbeck and Peter Cornelius, double portrait, pencil drawing, 1812. Formerly in the Collection Lehnsen, Scarsdale, New York.
 
APA Citation Style for books and other materials:

Ways to Avoid Plagiarism

A Note about Plagiarism

It is important to cite your sources properly. If you want to learn more about avoiding plagiarism, read the Plagiarism Guide.


When you are writing your paper, you can use several ways to present information you have found in the body of your paper, and consciously avoid plagiarizing.

  • Direct quote

If you want to use a sentence or a passage exactly as it was written, you can include a direct quote, surrounded by quotation marks, and either using an inline citation, or a sentence before the quote referencing the author and work of origin.

  • Summary

You can also write a summary (in your own words of course) of the ideas or text you want to use. It helps to write the summary from your memory rather than looking directly at the passage.

  • Paraphrase

Paraphrasing is similar to a summary. It just means taking what you have read and rewriting it in your own words.