| Manual of Style (MoS) |
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A caption is text that appears below an image.[a] Most captions draw attention to something in the image that is not obvious, such as its relevance to the text. A caption may be a few words or several sentences. Writing good captions takes effort; along with the lead and section headings, captions are the most commonly read words in an article, so they should be succinct and informative.
Not every image needs a caption; some are simply decorative. Relatively few may be genuinely self-explanatory. In addition to a caption, alt text – for visually impaired readers – should be added to informative (but not purely decorative) images;[1][2][3] see Wikipedia:Alternative text for images.
Some criteria for a good caption
There are several criteria for a good caption. A good caption:
- clearly identifies the subject of the picture, without detailing the obvious;
- is succinct;
- establishes the picture's relevance to the article;
- provides context for the picture;
- draws the reader into the article.
Different people read articles in different ways. Some people start at the top and read each word until the end. Others read the first paragraph and scan through the article's body for other interesting information, looking especially at pictures and captions. Those readers, even if the information is adjacent in the text, will not find it unless it is in the caption. However, it is best not to tell the whole story in the caption, but use the caption to make the reader curious about the subject.
Another way of approaching the job: imagine you're giving a lecture based on the encyclopedia article, and you are using the image to illustrate the lecture. What would you say while attention is on the image? What do you want your audience to notice in the image, and why? Corollary: if you have nothing to say about it, then the image probably does not belong in the article.
Clear identification of the subject
One of a caption's primary purposes is to identify the subject of the picture. Make sure your caption does that, without leaving readers to wonder what the subject of the picture might be. Be as unambiguous as practical in identifying the subject. What the picture is is important, too. If the image to be captioned is a painting, an editor can give context with the painter's wikilinked name, the title, and a date. The present location may be added in parentheses: (Louvre). Sometimes the date of the image is important: there is a difference between "King Arthur" and "King Arthur in a 19th-century watercolor".
Photographs and other graphics need not have captions if they are "self-captioning" images (such as reproductions of album or book covers) or when they are unambiguous depictions of the subject of the article. In a biography article no caption is necessary for a portrait of the subject pictured alone; but one might be used to give the year, the subject's age, or other circumstances of the portrait along with the name of the subject.
Succinctness
Succinctness is using no superfluous or needless words. It is not the same as brevity, which is using a relatively small number of words. Succinct captions have more power than verbose ones. More than three lines of text in a caption may be distracting; instead, further information can be provided in the article body. And remember that readers wanting full detail can click through to the image description page.
Non-visual media
Because non-visual media imparts no visual information regarding the content of its file, it is often desirable to include a longer description than is typically acceptable with image captions. As with image captions, care should be taken to include enough relevant information in-line so the media file's relevance to the article is made explicit irrespective of the caption. As a general rule, retain broader points in the article body, including specific points in the media file's description field. For example, the statement: "'Yesterday' is one of the Beatles' best-known songs" might be more appropriate for the article body than the statement: "The string arrangement on 'Yesterday' utilises counterpoint, which complements McCartney's vocals by reinforcing the tonic", which might be more appropriate as an Ogg file description, especially if the text pertains to the contents of the media file or supports its fair-use rationale.
Technical images
Technical images like charts and diagrams may have captions that are much longer than other images. Prose should still be succinct, but the significance of the image should be fully explained. Any elements not included in a legend or clearly labelled should be defined in the caption. A substantial, full discussion of a technical image may be confined to the caption if it improves the structure of the prose in the main article.
For maps and other images with a legend, the {{legend}} template can be used in the caption instead of (or in addition to) including the legend explaining the color used in the image. This makes the legend more readable, and allows for easy translation into other languages.
Establishing relevance to the article
A good caption explains why a picture belongs in an article. "The 1965 Ford Mustang introduced the whiz-bang super-speeder" tells the reader why it is worth the trouble to show a photo of a 1965 Ford Mustang rather than just any year of that model car. Links to relevant sections within the article may help draw the reader in (see here for how to do this).
Providing context for the picture
A picture captures only one moment in time. What happened before and after? What happened outside the frame?
For The Last Supper, "Jesus dines with his disciples" tells something, but add "on the eve of his crucifixion" and it tells much more about the significance. Add "With this meal, Jesus established the tradition of Holy Communion" to get more context if you do not cover that in the article. In such a caption the name of the painter and date provide information on the cultural point of view of the particular representation.
Drawing the reader into the article
The caption should lead the reader into the article. For example, in History of the Peerage, a caption for Image:William I of England.jpg might say "William of Normandy overthrew the Anglo-Saxon monarchs, bringing a new style of government." Then the reader gets curious about that new form of government and reads text to learn what it is.
Wording
- While a short caption is often appropriate, if it might be seen as trivial (People playing Monopoly), consider extending it so that it adds value to the image and is related more logically to the surrounding text (A product of the Great Depression, Monopoly continues to be played today.).
- Sometimes the title-and-subtitle style with a colon works: Neoclassicism: antiquity recreated in an 18th-century mode.
- It is usually unnecessary to state what kind of image is being shown. A map of the world showing NATO member countries can be captioned simply NATO members rather than Map of NATO members.
- An artist's rendition of a subject of history should be identified as such to avoid confusing details of actual events or portrait likenesses with artistic renditions of them, which are not always accurate.
- Wikipedia has its technical means of getting readers to the full-size version of the image; therefore amending the caption with a direct link to the image (for example, click for larger view) is not appropriate.
