Would you be happy to use a figure from published work (not your own) in your thesis to illustrate a point, or for comparison with your own results where you don't have access to the authors' raw data?
I'm not sure about it personally...the reader could easily go look up the figure you're referring to and read YOUR discussion of it while looking at the original results. Why resort to copying the figure into your own thesis?
I've seen it done, so it obviously isn't a problem, but I'm just not sure about it...

Hi Sue,

I think you should try and get permission from the author if you want to use the original. Alternatively you could creat a picture yourself and then mention that it is based on the original and reference that. Saying that I think the gold standard would be to get in contact with the author first.

Yeah, I was trying to say (without offending anyone) that I DON'T like it, and don't really want to do it even though there are times when it would make things easier for me...
I guess people see it done in books and think it's okay, but I'm sure the authors of a book got all the necessary permissions.

I agree with you, normally if I'm wanting to use a diagram from a reference, I modify it to how I want it and then reference it as "modified from blah (2007).

I used one from another paper in my thesis and just referenced it to the original document. I think there's absolutely no problem if you state clearly where it's from.

I think why not- if that figure illustrates the point very well or is a subtantial part of your argument, why not to use it in thesis with an appropriate reference to the original. One could just give a reference, but imagine yourself in the place of the reader who have to go to library or to a database to get the source where the figure is, in order to udnerstand what you are taliking about.

My supervisor said I could use it as long as I modified it, even altering the labelling slightly. There are lots of really helpful diagrams I've used in mine. They're generally to help explain research from someone else that I am reporting. My thesis analyses other work quite a lot.

You say based on.....in the figure