Citing and referencing: Tables and Figures

A guide to the styles recommended by Monash schools and departments for students and researchers

Tables and figures

Notes: Follow these examples closely for all layout, punctuation, spacing, capitalising, and italicising.

When including a figure or a table from another source in your work, it is important to include appropriate notes to acknowledge copyright attributions. A copyright attribution must be included in the table note or figure note indicating the origin of the reprinted or adapted material in addition to a reference list entry for the work. The APA Citing and Referencing Library Guide (on the left hand side of this page) provides referencing information for many different forms of scholarly sources. 

  • Tables are numerical values or text displayed in rows and columns.
  • Figures are other illustrations such as graphs, charts, maps, drawings, photographs etc.
  • All tables and figures must be referred to in the main body of the text.
  • Number all tables and figures in the order they first appear in the text. 
  • Refer to them in the text by their number. For example:

As shown in Table 2 ...

OR

As illustrated in Figure 3 ...

  • Each table or figure should be numbered and titled.
  • If notes are used for tables or figures, they should be double-spaced, flush left, and in the same font as the text of the paper.
  • For images, photos, and paintings, see Audio and Visual media in this guide
  • For further information, see Digital images and Copyright.

 

Tables reproduced in your text:

  • Each table should be displayed with a number and a brief but clear explanatory title. The table number appears above the table in bold font flush left. The table title appears one double-spaced line below the table number in italic title case. 

 

Example of title

Table 1

Hours of Television Viewing Per Week by Age Group

 

  • Table notes: Tables can include notes which are placed below the body of the table. Notes are designated by the word "Note" (italicised) followed by a full stop. Notes can be used to describe the contents of the table that cannot be understood from the table title or body alone, e.g. explanations of abbreviations and/or copyright attributions for reprinted or adapted tables. Use the following format - this format differs from the reference list format.  See note at bottom of this page regarding copyright permissions if publishing a table.
  • For other examples of tables, see Academic Writer.
  • For further information, see the APA Style website.

 

 

Format of table notes

(Use URL if there is no DOI)

Article:

Note. Reprinted [adapted] from “Title of article,” by A. B. Author and C. D. Author, Year, Journal Title, volume(Issue), page number (https://doi.org/xxxxx). Copyright Year by Name of the copyright holder.

 

Book:

Note. Reprinted [adapted] from Title of book (p. xx), by E. F. Author, Year, Publisher. Copyright Year by Name of the copyright holder.

 

Figures reproduced in your text

  • Each figure should be displayed with a number and a brief but clear explanatory title. The figure number appears above the figure in bold font flush left. The figure title appears one double-spaced line below the figure number in italic title case. 
  • Figure notes: Figures can include notes which are placed below the body of the figure. Figure notes can be used to convey information to clarify the contents and to acknowledge figures reprinted or adapted from another source. Notes are designated by the word "Note" (italicised) followed by a full stop.  
  •  See note at bottom of this page regarding copyright permissions if publishing a figure.
  • For examples of figures, see Academic Writer.
  • For further information, see the APA Style website.

 

Format of notes for figures adapted or copied directly from another source.

(Use URL if there is no DOI)

Article:

Note. A concise explanation of the figure. Adapted [reprinted] from “Title of article,” by A. Author, B. Author, and C. Author, Year, Journal Title, Volume(Issue), page number (https://doi.org/xxxxx). Copyright Year by Name of the copyright holder.

Book:

Note. A concise explanation of the figure. Adapted [reprinted] from Title of book (p. xx), by E. F. Author, Year, Publisher. Copyright Year by Name of the copyright holder.

 

If a figure or table is reproduced from another source for a published work, permission must be sought from the copyright holder and this information must be included in the notes.

(Use URL if there is no DOI)

Article:

Note. A concise explanation of the figure. Reprinted [adapted] from “Title of article,” by A. Author, B. Author, and C. Author, Year, Journal Title, Volume(Issue), page number (https://doi.org/xxxxx). Copyright year by name of the copyright holder. Reprinted [or adapted] with permission. 

Book:

Note. A concise explanation of the figure. Reprinted [adapted] from Title of Book (p. xx), by E. F. Author, Year, Publisher. Copyright year by name of the copyright holder. Reprinted [or adapted] with permission.  

PRISMA flow diagram:

Figure 1 PRISMA 2020 flow diagram template for systematic reviews

You add this below the flow diagram. It is not indented:

Note: From "The PRISMA 2020 statement: An updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews", by M. Page, J. McKenzie, P. Bossuyt, I. Boutron, T. Hoffmann, C. Mulrow, L. Shamseer, J. Tetzlaff, E, Akl, S. Brennan, R. Chou, J. Glanville, J. Grimshaw, A. Hróbjartsson, M. Lalu, T. Li, E. Loder, E. Mayo-Wilson, S. McDonald, . . . and D. Moher., 2021, BMJ, 372,n.71, p. 5 (https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n71). CC BY 4.0.

 

 
https://guides.lib.monash.edu/citing-referencing/tables-figures
guides.lib.monash.edu
crawl=CC-MAIN-2022-40
71428
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:6U7WRFS6CBKXO2Y44XBI2BUGLVHOWOS3
<urn:uuid:dac06f69-fd02-4a07-9643-a82443d2c328>
2022-09-29T04:46:17Z
13.238.99.138
text/html
sha1:JK7TEJYABTR5FWTZJNXG6OIKRQZW7U5D
<urn:uuid:f27e110c-f354-4522-97db-af05e4ab5749>
https://guides.lib.monash.edu/citing-referencing/tables-figures
response
<urn:uuid:c8737ec6-4557-4fb3-8bd5-b00e0c657823>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2022-40
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for September/October 2022
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-70
software: Apache Nutch 1.19 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.4-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: https://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/