Writing & StyleStyle guide

List of Illustrations

A list of illustrations is optional navigation for visual material rather than a universal front-matter requirement. Oxford University Press allows lists of illustrations, figures and maps when useful and handles page-number/link details in production.

Quick answer

Create a list of illustrations when the visual material is substantial enough to benefit from dedicated navigation, and follow the publisher’s rules for names, ordering, page numbers and grouping.

Key details

Core Issueproviding front-matter navigation to illustrations or figures in a long work
Registerbooks and long-form publishing

Important caveats

Scope Boundary

A separate list is not universally required, and publishers may combine or separate illustrations, figures and maps differently.

Further guidance

Entries

Entries should identify the illustrated items consistently; page numbers or digital links can be supplied by the production workflow.

Purpose

A list of illustrations helps readers locate visual material in a book when the quantity and structure make a dedicated list useful.

Sources and evidence

Sources are shown with the role they play in this guide. Historical or style-sensitive claims are kept within the evidence boundary described above.

  1. Front and end matter — Oxford Academic (opens in a new tab)Oxford University Press · OUP book-workflow guidance for forewords, prefaces, half-title/frontispiece, epigraph, illustration/map lists, contributors, reader notes and endpapers

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