How do I reference… images, figures, and tables in the APA7 style?

So you want to use an image or table in your assignment that you didn’t create yourself – but you don’t know how to cite it? Read on to find out how.

Any images, figures, graphs or tables that you copy from another author or creator need to be labelled with a title that describes what they show, along with an in-text citation indicating their source and, at the end of your work, a corresponding reference for that source. If the source has page numbers, these should be included, just like in a citation for a direct quotation. See our examples below…

Citing an image or chart:

This datagraphic comes from Euromonitor’s Passport database.

Source: Euromonitor, 2024.

In text citations:

Parenthetical citation:
Carbonates account for the highest value sales in the German soft drinks market (Euromonitor, 2024), with bottled water as the second largest segment…

Narrative citation:
Euromonitor (2024) list carbonates as the best performing segment in the German soft drinks market.

Reference:

Remember too that you will need to include the appropriate reference in your bibliography / reference list. For the example above, in the APA7 style, the reference would look like this:

Euromonitor (2024, January). Soft drinks in Germany. Passport. https://www.portal.euromonitor.com/

Citing Tables:

This soft drinks data is also available in table form within the same Passport report. So, if you were going to copy the table into your work, we treat it in exactly the same way.

Source: Euromonitor, 2024.

In text citations:

Parenthetical citation:
Sales of carbonates, bottled water and juice account for over 75% of sales in the German soft drinks market (Euromonitor, 2024).

Narrative citation:
According to Euromonitor (2024), sales of carbonates, bottled water and juice are worth over 75% of the German soft drinks market.

Reference:

The full APA7 reference would again be:

Euromonitor (2024, January). Soft drinks in Germany. Passport. https://www.portal.euromonitor.com/

Adaptations:

If you have taken data in any form from another resource and developed or adapted it in some way, then you can indicate this in your in-text citation by adding the phrase ‘adapted from’ in the description of the figure. This would cover adding a new column of data from another source to an existing data table or perhaps using data you have downloaded to create your own chart. See below for an example of an author doing this.

The example below has been taken from p28 of the following book:

Fry, H., Ketteridge, S. & Marshall, S. (Eds.). (2015). A handbook for teaching and learning in higher education: Enhancing academic practice (4th ed.). Routledge.

In text citations:

Parenthetical citation:
Non-EU enrolments in UK universities increased gradually between 2002 and 2012 (International Unit, 2013a).

Narrative citation:
International Unit (2013a) data demonstrates a gradual rise in non-EU enrolments in UK universities between 2002 and 2012.

Reference:

Always remember to include the full bibliographic reference for all the sources that you use in your reference list. In this case, Fry et al. include the following reference in their bibliography (adapted to the APA7 referencing style by the author of this post):

International Unit. (2013a). International Higher Education in Facts and Figures, Autumn. Retrieved February 14, 2014, from http://www.international.ac.uk/media/2416084/intfacts2013.pdf

Please note: Cranfield supports two different referencing styles – APA7 (Author-date) and Numbered (NLM). Please make sure you use the style preferred by your supervisor or lecturer. The advice above relates only to the APA7 style. If you have any questions about referencing, please contact the Library.

Feature image from Pixabay. Available at https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2016/06/01/06/26/open-book-1428428_960_720.jpg