General
Use normal punctuation in captions, except at the end – no full stop at the end of the caption.
Image captions are a maximum of 200 characters (including spaces), and must include a credit in the format "(Image: name/organisation)" Note that there is no full stop after the parentheses at the end of the caption.
Text
The image caption should be directly linked to the body text. So instead of:
The Antiproton Decelerator (Image: CERN)
Write
The Antiproton Decelerator slows antiprotons and delivers them to the ALPHA experiment (Image: CERN)
Credit
Image captions must always include a credit in the format "Image: name/organisation"
Credit the person first, and separate the person's name from the organisation's name with a "/" all closed up. Strive to find the photographer's name – journalists get bylines; one should also acknowledge the work of photographers.
| CORRECT | INCORRECT |
|---|---|
| Image: CERN | Image:CERN |
| Image: CERN. | |
| Image: Joe Bloggs/CERN | Image: CERN/Joe Bloggs |
| Image: Joe Bloggs/CERN. | |
| Image: Joe Bloggs / CERN. |
Captions for photographs should entice the reader to read the main text, they can be "teasers" rather than explanations of the image.
Captions for graphs should be brief, clear explanations of the data presented.
HTML
For a caption on an image or video within the Body field in Drupal, always use <figcaption>
The markup should look something like:
<figure>
<img src="/files/uploads/image.jpg">
<figcaption>This is an example image (Joe Bloggs/CERN)</figcaption>
</figure>
CERN's public homepage
The CERN homepage hosts live event displays from the experiments.
If you work for an experiment at CERN and would like to submit images to display, please click here.
Please follow the guidelines below for the image caption required.
Style
Note that on the homepage, captions are a maximum of 140 characters. No full stop at the end of the caption.
This image is for the general public. Spell out the names of particles and ions in full. Do not include chemical symbols, or the shorthand symbols for particles in equations.
Examples:
Bad example:
"Be+Be collision at 150 GeV/c beam momentum"
This caption means nothing to a lay audience.
Better example:
"Beryllium ions hit a lead target at high energy in this image from the NA62 experiment, expelling a jet of pions"
"Protons collide in the CMS detector forming 4 high-energy electrons (red). A Standard-Model Higgs boson could emerge from such an event"