What's what?

Figures are drawings, pictures, schematics, or graphs. Tables are only matrices, grids with information (numbers or words). Students sometimes call graph diagrams tables too, but the term is only used for grids.

Every table and figure gets a caption, explaining what it is, if needed with a source reference. If you use more than one figure or table, then your paper should include a seperate list of tables and list of figures, with a brief version of the captio

Examples:

Fig. 1 Poster of the 1927 Fritz Lang film Metropolis. (source: www.wikipedia.org)

The caption is underneath the picture, explains what it is and mentions the source, which is free of copyright.

Table 1 Norman monarchs of England (1066-1141). (source: www.wikipedia.org)

The data in some of the boxes are visual, but the overall form is that of a grid.

Fig. 2 Student marks for the course Introduction to Blah!, Twente, 2089. (reprinted with permission of the author)

At the end of your paper, you would have:

List of Figures

Fig 1 Poster of the 1927 Fritz Lang film Metropolis.
Fig. 2 Student marks for the course Introduction to Blah!, Twente, 2089.

List of Tables

Table 1 Norman monarchs of England (1066-1141).