Research Guides: Geology: Searching and Citing Images

Searching images

Google Image Search
You can search by keywords. Or, you can search by the url of an image that you've found during a search. Google accomplishes this by analyzing the submitted picture and constructing a mathematical model of it using advanced algorithms. Somtimes this method allows you to identify an image or compare the quality, origin, and copyright for a group of similar images. It's a bit of a crapshoot.
Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons is an online repository of free-use images, sounds, other media. Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used across all Wikimedia collections, in all languages, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikivoyage, Wikispecies, Wikisource, and Wikinews, or downloaded for offsite use. As of 2019, the repository contains over 55 million free media files, managed and editable by registered volunteers
Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online
The collections of the Prints & Photographs Division include photographs, fine and popular prints and drawings, posters, and architectural and engineering drawings. While international in scope, the collections are particularly rich in materials produced in, or documenting the history of, the United States and the lives, interests and achievements of the American people.

Citing and images/photographs

For questions not answered by the description, below, you can always "Ask MLA."

For instance, you can find specific instructions about citing an artifact.

Look for these identifiers when you download the image:

The name of the creator of the digital image
*The title of the digital image
The title of the website that the image was found on
The names of any other contributors responsible for the digital image
Version of the image (if applicable)
Any numbers associated with the image (if applicable)
*The publisher of the image
The date the image was created or published
*The location of the image, such as a URL
*Access Date

*Notes:
If the digital image does not have a title, include a description of the image. Do not place this information in quotation marks or italics.

If the picture was found using Google Images, do not cite Google Images as the publisher. Instead, click on the picture and use the information from the website that is hosting the picture.

When including the URL in the citation, omit “http://” and “https://” from the site’s address. In addition, if the citation will be viewed on a digital device, it is helpful to make it clickable. This ensures that readers will be able to easily access and view the source themselves.

Structure of a citation for an image found on a website in MLA 8:

Creator’s Last name, First name. “Title of the digital image.” Title of the website, First name Last name of any contributors, Version (if applicable), Number (if applicable), Publisher, Publication date, URL. Access Date.

Examples of citations for digital images found on websites in MLA 8: