Do I need to cite sources on the slides themselves, or is a references slide enough?

Both. The slide where you use a source carries the in-text citation, and the last slide carries the full entry, exactly as a paper has in-text citations and a reference list. A references slide alone leaves the audience unable to tell which claim came from which source.

How do I cite an image on a PowerPoint slide in APA?

Put a note under the image: Note. From Title of Image [Photograph], by A. Author, Year, Site Name (URL), followed by the copyright or licence statement, and add a matching entry on the references slide. Clip art built into PowerPoint or Word needs neither; images from stock sites need both.

Do images in a presentation need a Works Cited entry in MLA?

Only if you discuss the image as evidence. The MLA Style Center says an image that is purely illustrative can carry its full publication details in the caption with no Works Cited entry. An image you analyse gets a short caption and a full entry on the Works Cited slide.

How do I use Chicago footnotes in a presentation?

Put the superscript number on the slide and the note text at the foot of the same slide, since the audience cannot turn to a notes page. Use a full note the first time and shortened notes afterwards, and end with a bibliography slide. Chicago author-date, with (Author Year, page) on the slide, is an equally valid alternative.

What font size should citations be on a slide?

No style manual sets one; the test is whether the back row can read it. A parenthetical inside a bullet stays the same size as the bullet. Image credits and Chicago notes at the foot of a slide work at 14 to 18 points, and a references slide at 16 to 20 points, split across two slides before going smaller.

How do I cite a video clip that I play during the presentation?

Cite the video on the slide with a timestamp for the passage you played: (Kettering Science Lab, 2022, 2:15) in APA, (Kettering Science Lab 00:02:15–00:02:40) in MLA, or a Chicago note giving the video's length and the point you started at. Add the video to the references, Works Cited, or bibliography slide.

Can I put the citations in the speaker notes instead of on the slides?

No. Speaker notes are invisible to the audience and are usually stripped when the deck is exported or shared as a PDF. Use them to remind yourself to name the source out loud, and keep the citation on the slide.

Cite Sources in a Presentation in APA, MLA, and Chicago [2026]

Quick Answer: cite sources on slides the way you would in a paper

Cite on the slide where the borrowed idea, quotation, image, or clip appears, using the same in-text form your style uses in a paper. Then end the deck with a references slide, a works-cited slide, or a bibliography slide in the same format as the end of a paper. An image gets its credit directly under the image, not only on the final slide. Saying the source out loud does not replace either step; the slide has to carry the citation because the slide is what gets shared.

Templates for a slide deck

APA 7 on the slide:

Paraphrased point (Author, Year). "Quoted words" (Author, Year, p. X).

APA 7 image credit under the image:

Note. From Title of Image [Photograph], by A. Author, Year, Site Name (https://xxxxx). CC BY 4.0.

APA 7 final slide:

References — the same entries, alphabetical, as at the end of a paper

MLA 9 on the slide:

Paraphrased point (Author X). "Quoted words" (Author X).

MLA 9 image caption:

Fig. 1. First Name Author, Title of Image, Year, Site Name, URL.

MLA 9 final slide:

Works Cited — alphabetical, in the same format as a paper

Chicago 18 on the slide (notes):

Quoted or paraphrased point.¹ — with 1. Author, Title (Publisher, Year), X. at the foot of the slide

Chicago 18 on the slide (author-date):

Paraphrased point (Author Year, X).

Chicago 18 final slide:

Bibliography or References — alphabetical, in the same format as a paper

Three places a citation can live in a deck

Every source in a presentation needs to be found twice: once where it is used, and once in a list at the end. Speaker notes are a third place, and they are the wrong one for the citation itself, because the audience never sees them and a shared PDF of the deck usually drops them. Use speaker notes to remind yourself to say the source's name, not to hold the citation.

On the slide, next to the borrowed material. A parenthetical after a bullet, a caption under an image, a short note at the foot of the slide. This is the in-text citation.
On the final slide or slides. A references, works-cited, or bibliography slide with every source in full. This is the reference list.
In speaker notes, as a prompt. Optional. "Say: this is from Ferreira's 2021 book." It never replaces the two above.

APA 7: author-date on the slide, references at the end

APA has no separate rulebook for presentations; the Publication Manual rules for in-text citations and reference lists apply as written. The one adjustment is that slides are made of bullet points, and a bullet point often has no closing period. Put the citation at the end of the bullet either way; if the bullet ends with a period, the citation goes before it, exactly as in a sentence.

Citing on the slide

APA 7, citations on a content slide

Paraphrase in a bullet:

• Retrieval practice roughly doubled one-week retention in an intro biology course (Ostrowski & Lindqvist, 2020)

Direct quotation:

• "Students who tested themselves retained twice as much a week later" (Ostrowski & Lindqvist, 2020, p. 121).

Narrative citation in a slide heading:

Ferreira (2021): attention is a budget, not a switch

Two sources for one point:

• Sleep loss impairs next-day recall (Adeyemi & Brandt, 2019; Ferreira, 2021)

Use the ampersand inside parentheses and the word and in running text, as in a paper. Order multiple sources inside one parenthetical alphabetically and separate them with semicolons. A quotation needs a page number; a paraphrase does not require one, though APA encourages it when it helps the reader find the passage.

The references slide

Title the slide References, list the entries alphabetically, and format each one exactly as you would at the end of a paper. Keep the hanging indent when the software allows it; both PowerPoint and Google Slides expose indentation controls in the paragraph settings. If the list does not fit at a readable size, continue on a second slide titled References (continued) rather than shrinking the type. Every source cited on a slide appears here, and every image you credited under a figure appears here too.

APA 7, a references slide

Adeyemi, F., & Brandt, S. (2019). Caffeine, sleep debt, and recall in undergraduates. Journal of Cognitive Learning, 8(3), 40–52. https://doi.org/10.5555/jcl.2019.8.40

Alcántara, J. (2019). Sunrise over the Palouse [Photograph]. Openlens. https://photos.example.com/alcantara/48211

Ferreira, N. (2021). Attention and the learning brain. Halcyon Academic Press.

Kettering Science Lab. (2022, March 3). How enzymes work [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3nZ8wq1tXo

Ostrowski, K., & Lindqvist, A. (2020). Retrieval practice in undergraduate biology. Journal of Science Teaching Research, 14(2), 113–129. https://doi.org/10.5555/jstr.2020.14.113

Images on slides: the copyright attribution

APA treats an image you reproduce as a figure, and a reproduced figure needs two things: a copyright attribution in the figure note, under the image, and a matching entry in the reference list. The APA figure guidelines give the attribution pattern: From or Adapted from, the title, by the creator's initials and surname, the year, the site, the URL in parentheses, and then the copyright status. On a slide, the figure number and title are usually dropped and the note alone sits under the image.

APA 7, image credits under the image

Creative Commons image:

Note. From Sunrise over the Palouse [Photograph], by J. Alcántara, 2019, Openlens (https://photos.example.com/alcantara/48211). CC BY 2.0.

Public-domain image:

Note. From Cell Diagram [Illustration], by Northwind Science Archive, 2015, Northwind Commons (https://commons.example.org/cell-diagram). In the public domain.

Copyrighted image used with permission:

Matching reference entry:

Alcántara, J. (2019). Sunrise over the Palouse [Photograph]. Openlens. https://photos.example.com/alcantara/48211

Two exceptions save you work. Clip art and stock images that ship inside PowerPoint or Word need no citation and no attribution, because the software licence covers them; APA's clip art and stock image page says so directly. Images from stock sites such as Unsplash or Getty are different: they need the reference entry and the copyright attribution like any other image. The image citation guide covers the reference formats for museums, databases, and social media.

Charts and video clips

A chart copied from a paper is a figure and takes the same From or Adapted from note, with the article's page number. A chart you drew from someone else's numbers is your figure, so credit the data in the note with an ordinary citation. A video clip embedded or linked on a slide is cited like any video, with a timestamp as the locator, and the video gets a reference entry; see how to cite a YouTube video in APA.

APA 7, charts and clips

Chart reproduced from an article:

Note. Adapted from "Retrieval Practice in Undergraduate Biology," by K. Ostrowski and A. Lindqvist, 2020, Journal of Science Teaching Research, 14(2), p. 120 (https://doi.org/10.5555/jstr.2020.14.113). Copyright 2020 by the Science Teaching Association.

Chart you built from published data:

Note. Data from Ostrowski and Lindqvist (2020, Table 2).

Video clip on the slide:

• Enzyme–substrate binding, 2:15–2:40 (Kettering Science Lab, 2022)

MLA 9: author-page on the slide, Works Cited at the end

MLA's advice for presentations is short and comes from the Style Center itself: cite an image in a slide deck the same way you would in a printed paper, and put the works-cited list on the final slide. Text sources follow the same logic. The in-text citation is the author's surname and a page number in parentheses, and it sits at the end of the bullet, before any closing period.

Citing on the slide

MLA 9, citations on a content slide

Paraphrase in a bullet:

• Retrieval practice roughly doubled one-week retention in an intro biology course (Ostrowski and Lindqvist 121)

Direct quotation:

• "Students who tested themselves retained twice as much a week later" (Ostrowski and Lindqvist 121).

Author named in the heading:

Ferreira: attention is a budget, not a switch (88)

Two sources for one point:

• Sleep loss impairs next-day recall (Adeyemi and Brandt 42; Ferreira 88)

Video clip, timestamp as locator:

• Enzyme–substrate binding (Kettering Science Lab 00:02:15–00:02:40)

Images: caption or Works Cited entry

The Style Center draws one distinction that decides how much you write. An image that is purely illustrative gets its full publication details in the caption and no works-cited entry. An image you discuss as evidence gets a short caption that points to a full entry on the Works Cited slide. The caption itself follows the MLA figure-caption pattern: the label Fig. and a number, then the creator, the italicised title, the year, and the source.

MLA 9, image captions on a slide

Illustrative image, full details in the caption (no Works Cited entry):

Fig. 1. Javier Alcántara, Sunrise over the Palouse, 2019, Openlens, photos.example.com/alcantara/48211.

Image you analyse, short caption:

Fig. 1. Alcántara, Sunrise over the Palouse.

Matching Works Cited entry:

Alcántara, Javier. Sunrise over the Palouse. 2019. Openlens, photos.example.com/alcantara/48211.

Chart built from published data:

Fig. 2. One-week retention by study condition. Data from Ostrowski and Lindqvist, table 2.

The Works Cited slide

MLA 9, a Works Cited slide

Adeyemi, Folake, and Sven Brandt. "Caffeine, Sleep Debt, and Recall in Undergraduates." Journal of Cognitive Learning, vol. 8, no. 3, 2019, pp. 40–52, https://doi.org/10.5555/jcl.2019.8.40.

Ferreira, Nadia. Attention and the Learning Brain. Halcyon Academic Press, 2021.

Kettering Science Lab. "How Enzymes Work." YouTube, 3 Mar. 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3nZ8wq1tXo.

Ostrowski, Kasia, and Anders Lindqvist. "Retrieval Practice in Undergraduate Biology." Journal of Science Teaching Research, vol. 14, no. 2, 2020, pp. 113–29, https://doi.org/10.5555/jstr.2020.14.113.

Chicago 18: notes on the slide, bibliography at the end

Chicago gives you a choice that the other two styles do not. Notes-bibliography puts a superscript number on the slide and the note at the foot of the same slide, with a bibliography slide at the end. Author-date works exactly like APA on the slide, with a references slide at the end. The Chicago citation guides cover both systems; pick one for the whole deck.

Notes-bibliography on a slide

Because the audience cannot flip to the end of a chapter, the note text belongs on the same slide as its number, in a smaller line at the bottom. Use full notes the first time a source appears and shortened notes after that, restarting the numbering on each slide so the numbers stay small. Many presenters skip the superscript entirely and simply place the shortened note at the foot of the slide; that is acceptable in a talk as long as the bibliography slide carries the full entry.

Chicago 18, notes on a content slide

Bullet with a note number:

• "Students who tested themselves retained twice as much a week later."¹

Full note at the foot of the slide:

1. Kasia Ostrowski and Anders Lindqvist, "Retrieval Practice in Undergraduate Biology," Journal of Science Teaching Research 14, no. 2 (2020): 121, https://doi.org/10.5555/jstr.2020.14.113.

Shortened note on a later slide:

1. Ostrowski and Lindqvist, "Retrieval Practice," 124.

Two sources in one note:

2. Folake Adeyemi and Sven Brandt, "Caffeine, Sleep Debt, and Recall in Undergraduates," Journal of Cognitive Learning 8, no. 3 (2019): 42; Nadia Ferreira, Attention and the Learning Brain (Halcyon Academic Press, 2021), 88.

Author-date alternative on the slide:

• Sleep loss impairs next-day recall (Adeyemi and Brandt 2019, 42; Ferreira 2021, 88)

Images, charts, and clips in Chicago

Chicago credits a reproduced image in a credit line under the image: the creator, the italicised title of the work, the year, the medium if useful, the source, and the licence or permission. A chart made from someone else's data says so in its caption with a source line. A video clip is cited in a note like any video, with the timestamp of the passage you showed. Chicago's multimedia guide has the full video and audio patterns.

Chicago 18, credits and clips on slides

Image credit line:

Javier Alcántara, Sunrise over the Palouse, 2019, photograph, Openlens, CC BY 2.0.

Chart source line:

Source: Data from Ostrowski and Lindqvist, "Retrieval Practice," table 2.

Video clip, note:

3. Kettering Science Lab, "How Enzymes Work," March 3, 2022, YouTube video, 6:42, at 2:15, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3nZ8wq1tXo.

Bibliography entries:

Alcántara, Javier. Sunrise over the Palouse. 2019. Photograph. Openlens. https://photos.example.com/alcantara/48211.

Kettering Science Lab. "How Enzymes Work." March 3, 2022. YouTube video, 6:42. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3nZ8wq1tXo.

Ostrowski, Kasia, and Anders Lindqvist. "Retrieval Practice in Undergraduate Biology." Journal of Science Teaching Research 14, no. 2 (2020): 113–29. https://doi.org/10.5555/jstr.2020.14.113.

Illustration or evidence? What each style asks for

An image, chart, or clip you only display

APA 7:

Copyright attribution under the image and a reference entry. APA does not waive either for decorative images, except for clip art built into the software.

MLA 9:

Full publication details in the caption; no Works Cited entry needed.

Chicago 18:

A credit line under the image. A bibliography entry is optional for an illustration you do not discuss.

An image, chart, or clip you analyse as evidence

APA 7:

Attribution under the image, a citation wherever you discuss it, and a reference entry.

MLA 9:

Short caption that points to a full Works Cited entry; cite it in the text where you discuss it.

Chicago 18:

Credit line under the image, a note where you discuss it, and a bibliography entry.

Font sizes, placement, and readability

No style manual sets a slide font size, so the standard is legibility from the back of the room. A citation the audience cannot read is a citation that is not there. The numbers below are working conventions, not rules, and they are on the generous side because projectors and video calls both lose resolution.

Working sizes for citations on slides.
Element	Suggested size	Why
Body text on a content slide	24 pt or larger	The citation is sized relative to this
Parenthetical citation in a bullet	Same as the bullet	It is part of the sentence; do not shrink it
Image credit or Chicago note at the foot of the slide	14–18 pt	Smaller than body text, still readable when projected
References or Works Cited slide	16–20 pt	Split across slides before going smaller
Absolute floor	12 pt	Below this, nothing is legible from more than a few metres

Keep citations in the same font and colour as the surrounding text. A grey, tiny credit line reads as an afterthought and often fails contrast checks.
Put image credits directly under or beside the image, on the same slide. A credit on the last slide is not enough in APA or Chicago and is confusing in MLA.
Give the references slide a plain title (References, Works Cited, or Bibliography) and no decorative background that fights the text.
Do not cut a references slide to "selected sources." Every citation on a slide needs its entry.
If the deck will be shared as a PDF, check the export once: speaker notes disappear and superscripts sometimes lose their formatting.
When a quotation runs long, use a whole slide for it and put the citation at the bottom of that slide, as you would for a block quotation.

Citing a presentation that someone else gave

The reverse problem, citing a talk or a deck in your own paper, depends on what the reader can retrieve. A deck posted online is cited by its URL. A talk given at a conference is cited as a conference session or presentation with the event, place, and date. A slide file your instructor posted to Canvas is a classroom source, covered in how to cite a lecture or PowerPoint in APA. The full patterns for every style live on the presentation slides in APA, MLA, and Chicago pages; the short version is below.

A public slide deck and a conference talk in all three styles

APA 7, slides posted online:

Okonkwo, B. (2023, October 12). Designing accessible slide decks [PowerPoint slides]. SlideShare. https://www.slideshare.net/bokonkwo/designing-accessible-slide-decks

APA 7, conference talk:

Okonkwo, B. (2023, October 12–14). Designing accessible slide decks [Conference session]. EdTech Northwest 2023, Portland, OR, United States.

APA 7 in-text:

(Okonkwo, 2023, Slide 7)

MLA 9, slides posted online:

Okonkwo, Bisi. Designing Accessible Slide Decks. SlideShare, 12 Oct. 2023, www.slideshare.net/bokonkwo/designing-accessible-slide-decks. PowerPoint presentation.

MLA 9, conference talk:

Okonkwo, Bisi. "Designing Accessible Slide Decks." EdTech Northwest, 12 Oct. 2023, Oregon Convention Center, Portland. Presentation.

MLA 9 in-text:

(Okonkwo, slide 7)

Chicago 18 note, slides posted online:

1. Bisi Okonkwo, "Designing Accessible Slide Decks" (PowerPoint presentation, EdTech Northwest, Portland, OR, October 12, 2023), slide 7, https://www.slideshare.net/bokonkwo/designing-accessible-slide-decks.

Chicago 18 bibliography:

Okonkwo, Bisi. "Designing Accessible Slide Decks." PowerPoint presentation, EdTech Northwest, Portland, OR, October 12, 2023. https://www.slideshare.net/bokonkwo/designing-accessible-slide-decks.

Chicago 18 author-date in-text:

(Okonkwo 2023, slide 7)

Quick comparison

Where each style puts each piece of a presentation citation.
Element	APA 7	MLA 9	Chicago 18
Citation in a bullet	(Author, Year) or (Author, Year, p. X)	(Author X)	Superscript note on the slide, or (Author Year, X)
Two sources at once	(A & B, 2019; C, 2021), alphabetical, semicolons	(A and B 42; C 88)	One note with semicolons, or (A and B 2019; C 2021)
Image credit	Note. From Title, by A. Author, Year, Site (URL). Licence.	Fig. 1. Author, Title, Year, Site, URL.	Author, Title, Year, medium, Source, licence.
Does the image also need a list entry?	Yes, always	Only if you discuss it; caption can stand alone	If you discuss it; optional otherwise
Video clip locator	Timestamp: (Author, Year, 2:15)	Time range: (Author 00:02:15–00:02:40)	Duration and "at 2:15" in the note
Final slide title	References	Works Cited	Bibliography (notes) or References (author-date)
Hanging indent	Yes, where the software allows	Yes, where the software allows	Yes, where the software allows

Common mistakes

Citing only on the references slide. The audience sees a claim on slide 4 and a list on slide 30; the link between them is the on-slide citation.
Crediting an image with a bare URL. Every style wants the creator and the title; APA and Chicago also want the licence or copyright line.
Dropping the reference entry for images in APA because the credit is already under the picture. APA requires both.
Writing a full MLA Works Cited entry for a decorative image whose caption already carries the details. MLA lets the caption stand alone.
Shrinking the references slide to 9-point type so it fits. Split it across two slides instead.
Putting the citation only in the speaker notes. Notes are not part of the slide the audience sees or the PDF you share.
Using two Chicago systems in one deck: superscript notes on some slides and (Author Year) on others. Choose one.
Citing a video by its whole length when you played thirty seconds of it. Give the timestamp of what you showed.
Treating a talk you attended as a citable published work. If no recording or deck exists, APA calls it a personal communication and MLA and Chicago cite it as an in-person presentation with the venue and date.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to cite sources on the slides themselves, or is a references slide enough?: Both. The slide where you use a source carries the in-text citation, and the last slide carries the full entry, exactly as a paper has in-text citations and a reference list. A references slide alone leaves the audience unable to tell which claim came from which source.
How do I cite an image on a PowerPoint slide in APA?: Put a note under the image: Note. From Title of Image [Photograph], by A. Author, Year, Site Name (URL), followed by the copyright or licence statement, and add a matching entry on the references slide. Clip art built into PowerPoint or Word needs neither; images from stock sites need both.
Do images in a presentation need a Works Cited entry in MLA?: Only if you discuss the image as evidence. The MLA Style Center says an image that is purely illustrative can carry its full publication details in the caption with no Works Cited entry. An image you analyse gets a short caption and a full entry on the Works Cited slide.
How do I use Chicago footnotes in a presentation?: Put the superscript number on the slide and the note text at the foot of the same slide, since the audience cannot turn to a notes page. Use a full note the first time and shortened notes afterwards, and end with a bibliography slide. Chicago author-date, with (Author Year, page) on the slide, is an equally valid alternative.
What font size should citations be on a slide?: No style manual sets one; the test is whether the back row can read it. A parenthetical inside a bullet stays the same size as the bullet. Image credits and Chicago notes at the foot of a slide work at 14 to 18 points, and a references slide at 16 to 20 points, split across two slides before going smaller.
How do I cite a video clip that I play during the presentation?: Cite the video on the slide with a timestamp for the passage you played: (Kettering Science Lab, 2022, 2:15) in APA, (Kettering Science Lab 00:02:15–00:02:40) in MLA, or a Chicago note giving the video's length and the point you started at. Add the video to the references, Works Cited, or bibliography slide.
Can I put the citations in the speaker notes instead of on the slides?: No. Speaker notes are invisible to the audience and are usually stripped when the deck is exported or shared as a PDF. Use them to remind yourself to name the source out loud, and keep the citation on the slide.
How do I cite a presentation someone else gave?: If the slides are online, cite them by author, date, title, a description such as [PowerPoint slides], the site, and the URL. If it was a conference talk, cite it as a conference session or presentation with the event, place, and date. If nothing was recorded or posted, APA treats it as a personal communication; MLA and Chicago cite the in-person presentation with its venue and date.

Generate the on-slide citation and the credit line

Build the parenthetical or note for each slide with the in-text generator, and the image, video, and lecture generators produce the credit line and the matching reference entry for the final slide.

In-text citation generator →Image citation generator →YouTube citation generator →Hanging indent formatter →

Quick Answer: cite sources on slides the way you would in a paper

Three places a citation can live in a deck

APA 7: author-date on the slide, references at the end

Citing on the slide

The references slide

Images on slides: the copyright attribution

Charts and video clips

MLA 9: author-page on the slide, Works Cited at the end

Citing on the slide

Images: caption or Works Cited entry

The Works Cited slide

Chicago 18: notes on the slide, bibliography at the end

Notes-bibliography on a slide

Images, charts, and clips in Chicago

Illustration or evidence? What each style asks for

Font sizes, placement, and readability

Citing a presentation that someone else gave

Quick comparison

Common mistakes

Frequently asked questions

Generate the on-slide citation and the credit line

Related guides and official manuals