How to Write Figure Captions

Figures are visuals such as graphs, charts, photos, drawings, and maps. Figures are normally identified by the capitalized word Figure and a number followed by a caption. A caption is a short block of text that gives information about the figure. The following seven tips explain how to write figure captions in your book, article, or research paper.

Although closely related, tables aren’t considered figures. Table titles and notes will be discussed in a separate article.

Important Note: These tips are general guidelines based on our primary style guides. Each style guide has its own caption format (e.g., line spacing, margins, fonts). Therefore, you should consult your designated guide for specific recommendations, as necessary.

Seven Tips for Writing Figure Captions

Figure 1 and figure 2, located at the bottom of this article, demonstrate the guidelines explained in these tips.

1. Use captions instead of titles.

Figures in traditionally published books and scholarly writing usually have captions instead of titles.¹

However, some journals use titles and captions for figures.² Before submitting an article to a specific journal, always check its formatting requirements.

2. Place captions under figures.

Captions typically appear under figures.³ Sometimes captions appear beside or even above figures; however, the decision to place captions in uncommon locations is normally made by the layout designer or production editor, not by the writer or copy editor.⁴

Style Guide Alert: Written Music

The MLA Handbook (MLA style) and the Chicago Manual of Style (Chicago style) use the word Example rather than Figure to identify samples of written music in text. In addition, Chicago style places captions above written music instead of below, while MLA style keeps captions under written music.⁵

Note that the academic version of Chicago style, Turabian, also recommends placing captions above written music but uses Figure instead of Example.⁶

If you have music samples labeled as Example in addition to other figures, the music samples should be numbered separately from the figures (e.g., Example 1, Figure 1, Example 2, Figure 2).

3. Use a period after figure numbers.

Figures can be identified with regular numbers:

Figure 10.

Figure 11.

Figure 12.

They can also be identified by double numbering in which the first number identifies the chapter and the second number identifies the figure:

Figure 7.10. (the tenth figure in chapter 7)

Figure 7.11. (the eleventh figure in chapter 7)

Figure 7.12. (the twelfth figure in chapter 7)

Whether you are using regular numbers or double numbering, use a period after the figure number to separate it from the caption text.⁷

You may occasionally see the period omitted in favor of bold font combined with extra space before the caption text.⁸ Like placing captions in uncommon locations, this decision is usually made by a layout designer or production editor rather than the writer or copy editor.

Style Guide Alert: The Modern Language Association (MLA style) recommends using the abbreviation Fig. rather than Figure.⁹

4. Use sentence-style capitalization.

Captions should feature sentence-style capitalization rather than headline-style capitalization.¹⁰ This recommendation applies to complete sentences and to phrases and sentence fragments.

5. End captions with a period … most of the time.

Two of our primary style guides, the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA style) and the MLA Handbook (MLA style) use periods at the end of all captions even if they are incomplete sentences.¹¹

One of our other primary style guides, The Chicago Manual of Style (along with its academic version, Turabian) says that periods can be omitted if your captions are all phrases or sentence fragments. But, if your captions consist of complete sentences mixed with phrases and sentence fragments, always use periods.¹²

6. Include a variety of information (if necessary).

A caption should briefly describe the figure. You can also include additional information such as copyright statements, source citations, definitions of symbols, and explanations of units of measurement.¹³

There’s no official guideline for how long a caption can be. But, keep your readers in mind when writing captions because long blocks of unbroken text can be difficult to read (and therefore easy to ignore). If you think your caption is too long, consider other ways to present the necessary information, including the use of legends, labels, and keys within the figure itself.

7. Reference all figures in your text.

Each figure should be referenced in a sentence in your text, preferably before the figure appears in the document. The purpose of in-text references is to show your readers how figures connect to the content they are reading.

See “How to Reference Figures and Tables in Sentences” for examples and information relative to specific style guides.

The captions attached to figure 1 and figure 2, below, are examples based on the seven tips explained above.

Figure 1. Above left, Bartholomew; above right, Peabody; below left, Mr. Heckle; below right, Mr. Jeckle. Photography by Erin Wright.

Figure 2. Study participants’ favorite activities rated by occurrences per day. Reproduced by permission from Erin Wright, The Pets Are Running the Show (Whiting, IN: Fake Press, 2019), 57.

References

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th ed. (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association), 5.23.
AMA Manual of Style, 10th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 4.2.7.
The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 3.21. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5.23; “Tables and Illustrations,” Formatting a Research Paper, The MLA Style Center, accessed September 9, 2019; Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 9th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), 26.3.2.
“Headlines and Titles of Works,” Style Q&A, The Chicago Manual of Style Online, accessed September 10, 2019.
The Chicago Manual of Style, 3.5. “Tables and Illustrations,” The MLA Style Center.
Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 26.3.2.
The Chicago Manual of Style, 3.23; Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5.23; “Tables and Illustrations,” The MLA Style Center; Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 26.3.2.
The Chicago Manual of Style, 3.23.
“Tables and Illustrations,” The MLA Style Center.
The Chicago Manual of Style, 3.21; Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5.23; Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Research Paper, Theses, and Dissertations, 26.3.3.2.
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5.23; “Tables and Illustrations,” The MLA Style Center.
The Chicago Manual of Style, 3.21; Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 26.3.3.1.
13. The Chicago Manual of Style, 3.25; Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5.23; Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 26.3.3.2