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.
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
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.
Practical Application
Create a dedicated list only when illustrations are numerous enough to benefit from separate navigation. Mirror the exact illustration labels/titles used in the body, preserve their order, and regenerate page references after pagination changes.
Purpose
A list of illustrations helps readers locate visual material in a book when the quantity and structure make a dedicated list useful.
Reader Check
Would a reader find the visual material faster with a dedicated list, and do the entries exactly match the labels/captions in the document?
Worked Example
If the body contains “Illustration 3. River crossing,” the front-matter entry should reproduce that label and current page number rather than a manually shortened title.
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.
- 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