Lake Forest College Library: Research Guides: Find and Cite Images for Presentations

As a Lake Forest College student, you have access to hundreds of online databases and journals having images of a much higher resolution than many of the search engines on the Internet. These journals also have reliable documentation as to the source and subject of the image, and so are easier to cite correctly.
You can link to these images without violating copyright laws, but be sure to cite the source as you would any quotation.

and their copyright policies

PNAS Online (the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) allows reproduction of all of their images for non-profit, educational purposes without seeking permission. For example, see figure 1 at left.

However, you will still need to cite your source and give credit to the producer of the image. Figure 1 at left and Figure 3 (below right) are hyperlinked to the articles in which they appeared; entering the caption into the PNAS search box would retrieve the original article. Figure 2 (below) is cited with a footnote.

Scientific American Archive Online: permission to use the images for educational purposes is already granted on the site.

Science has a wealth of high resolution images. You must request permission to use these images for display purposes (e.g. for Student Symposium).

NBII (National Biological Information Infrastructure) Digital Image Library is developed and maintained by the Center for Biological Informatics of the U.S. Geological Survey. Images are either in public domain (copyright free) or have permission granted for use provided the creator is credited.

Wikimedia Commons or Mayflower Search has images and other content contributed by any individual who has the authority and desire to offer copyright-free media files. Give a link to the image in Wikimedia Commons and, when available, the name of the creator of the item. See also: Reusing content outside Wikimedia

Prints and Photographs Reading Room (Library of Congress) does not have scientific images at this time, but included in this digital collection are images from the early days of the conservation movement. Most are free to use for educational purposes.

Google's Image Search can be useful, but the images are typically best when viewed online (as in a PowerPoint presentation) and are rarely high enough resolution for printing anything larger than a postage stamp without blurring the image.
Look for images where at least one dimension is 500 pixels or greater. For best results, use the Advanced Google Image Search and select one of the larger size options.

Images used in professional journals are typically the work of the authors, and so need no additional citation by the author of the article. However, some review articles and student work make use of images obtained from outside sources and so must be cited.

Looking in scholarly journals and monographs, you will see different methods used for citing images.

The figure at the bottom of page 423 of an article in the journal Genes & Development has a lengthy note that ends with "Reproduced from Thakur et al. (2008a) with permission (originally published in Nature, http://www.nature.com)." At the top of page 432 is the complete reference for Thakur.

An article from the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution has a figure that reproduces 2 images. At the end of the note, credit is given: "Reproduced with permission from (a) H.E. Hoekstra and (c) J.L. Feder." Because APA style is not used, the references for Hoekstra and Feder are not found alphabetically in the references, but they are included (see reference numbers 25 and 68 on the last page of the article).

Below this image is a footnote used to cite the image.

Figure 3. B. pertussis by
J. L. Carson, 2003. Used
with permission. ¹

¹ From "Three genomes and whooping cough," by E. R. Winstead, 2003, Genome News Network . Copyright 2000 - 2004 by the J. Craig Venter Institute. Reproduced with permission of the photographer. Available at http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/09_03/ whooping_cough.php

Shown directly below is a citation for the image if you have a References list:

References

Carson, J. L. (2003). "B. pertussis." [Online image] In Three genomes and whooping cough, Genome News Network. Rockville Maryland: J. Craig Venter Institute. Retrieved from http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/09_03/ whooping_cough.php

Give the address of the page on which the image appeared rather than the address of the image to assist retrieval of the image at a later date.

Citing images in an online student presentation

This image is hyperlinked to the article in which it appeared. The article's permanent Digital Object Identifier (DOI) link is used (for off-campus LFC students, use this link). This method would be appropriate for student work that is published on the Web.

This image is linked directly to the original image and has a link to the cartoon's publisher's search engine which could retrieve the cartoon even if the url of the original image should change.

This image has the Internet address to the page where the image is published, which includes additional information about the image. To use the image in printed paper, simply remove the text, "Click image for larger version."

Figure 4. "Water lily [Nymphaeaceae] blooming in Saint Petersburg's Botanical Gardens, September 2005," by A. L. Olsen. Click image for larger version. Retrieved from the NBII (National Biological Information Infrastructure) Digital Image Library website, maintained by the Center for Biological Informatics of the U.S. Geological Survey, http://images.nbii.gov/details.php?id=55510&cat=search%20results

About Copyright and Permmission
If you want to reproduce the image in a publicly circulated paper, PowerPoint, website (such as in the Eukaryon), or on a poster, follow the copyright instructions for the individual journal or other source of the image you wish to use. Frequently, on the website of the journal, you can just do a search for the word copyright or the word permission, using the Find (Ctrl+F) command.

Some journals will give immediate permission to use the images for educational purposes, provided the source is credited properly.
Others require you to contact the author and/or publisher; generally contact information is provided, and replies to copyright requests are speedy.

Online subscribed journals —
For online journal images that can only be seen by those having access via a subscription, it is permitted for students to link to the image without obtaining any additional permission, as, for example, to this image of astrocytic cultures from the March 2004 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

For additional information, the Library of Congress' website page The Learning Page-Getting Started: Copyright answers many questions without legal jargon.

Accurate citation of sources is a good way to avoid plagiarsm and its consequences.