Style Guide for Electronic Communications

Captions, Credits, and Attributions

Captions and Credits for Graphics

The CLA website will include credits and captions for photographs and illustrations used on the site, including those used to create section headings. Credit is given as a professional courtesy; it contributes to the college’s relationships with these professionals and assists student photographers with career development.

Credits do not need to be given when photographs have been manipulated to a point where it is difficult to recognize the original work, e.g., an image used as a background that has been made into a duotone and blurred.

• Captions precede credits, whether they are placed on, below, or to the side of the image.
• When it is not desirable to place credits directly on or close to the image, credit for each image used should be placed at the bottom of the page as follows:

  Photo(s) by [photographer's name]

  When there is more than one photo, credit should be given clearly by indicating that it is being given left to right, top to bottom, or clockwise depending upon the layout.

  Here is an example of credits for three images laid out horizontally where one photographer has two photos being used:

  Photos (l to r) by Douglas Fir, Redd Woode, and Douglas Fir

Style for Content Attribution

Sometimes when you are managing web content you may need to note when the content was updated and who maintains it. In these cases, this style guide recommends that the following information be included at the bottom of the web page:

• Date
• First and last name of content owner or name of the owning department
• Phone extension of content owner or owning department
• E-mail address of content owner or owning department

Examples

• Last updated: August 8, 2004; content owner: Jane Doe (6-6543, doe1234@umn.edu)
• Last updated: August 8, 2004; content owner: CLA External Relations (5-5031, claext@umn.edu)

Attributing Writing, Editing, and Interviewing

For magazine-style writing, you may wish to give the content contributors unique recognition. The writer should receive a byline immediately below the headline.

Others who have made significant contributions to the story with substantial editing or interviewing should also receive credit. This credit should come at the end of the article. Below are some examples of giving credit to these contributors.

Examples

• May Phly and June Bugg contributed to this article.

(Contribution is left unspecified.)

• Everett Greene interviewed the subject for this story.

(Specific contribution is given.)