How to cite a book APA

How to Cite a Book in APA 7th Edition

Writing a reference list is always a challenge for a student. Indeed, you will hardly remember a sophisticated order of a reference entry. Books, authors, editions, and volumes – all this stuff puts you into unbearable frustration.

Today, we are about to end your suffering and provide you with a clear and understandable guideline into the APA 7th edition citation format.

Citing a Book in Print

You should stick to the following format while citing a printed book:

Write the author’s last name first, followed by initials.
Put a publication year.
Write an italicized book title.
If there is a subtitle, you should capitalize its first word.
If you cite a book that is not the first edition/volume, you should include the edition/volume number in the brackets after the book title.
Include a publisher. Don’t mention the publisher’s business structure (such stuff as Ltd.).

Here is an example:

Rowling, J. K. (1997). Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone. Bloomsbury.

Also, check this example for the book with editions:

Woolfolk, A. (2019). Educational psychology (14th ed.). Pearson.

If there is a book volume, you should include it in brackets like this: (Vol.2).

Citing a Whole Authored Book

A whole authored book is a work written by a single author. You should keep to the following guidelines while citing it:

Start your entry with the author’s last name and initials (for the first and the second (if the author has a middle name)). Put a comma after the author’s last name and use spaces between initials. Place a dot after each initial.
Put a publication year in round brackets at the end of the sentence. It is the reference entry’s first part.
Include the title of the book.
Include a volume/edition if necessary.
Include a publisher.

Here is an example:

Lastnameson, F. M. (2008). How to cite a book APA (Vol.2). EUSA.

Citing a Book with Multiple Authors

If a book has several authors, you should include their names in a row before the publication year. After the first author’s initials, put a comma and include the second, the third author, etc. Also, put an ampersand (&) before the last author. It has to look like this:

Clark, M. K., & Burke, A. (2014). The Cinderella Murder. Simon & Schuster.

In-Text Citations

You should keep to the following text citation format: (an author’s last name, a book publication date). It should look like this: (Jackson, 2009). If you want to include a page number for a direct quote, you should do it in the following way: (Jackson, 2009, p.34).

What if your book has multiple authors? You should include up to two authors in the text citation like this: water becomes ice when it freezes (Jackson & Peterson, 2008). If three or more people wrote a book, you should include only the first author and add “et al.” in your citations. It will look like this: Drinking water is deadly because every water drinker dies eventually (Anderson et al., 2010).

The narrative citation will look like this: Jackson (2009) found that the Earth orbited the Sun. Peterson et al. (2010) stated that sugar was sweet.

Citing an e-Book

Fortunately, there are a few differences in citing printed and online books. With an online book, you need to add a URL (a web address) or a digital object identifier (DOI) after a book publisher. What is a DOI? It’s a link to your online book that never changes, unlike the web address. The DOI starts with “https://doi.org/.”

How to find a DOI? It’s usually displayed within the book information on a particular page. However, it’s not a problem if you can’t find a DOI for your book. Just use a URL instead. Thus, an e-book citation will look like this:

Botsford, G. W. (1913). An ancient history for beginners. New York The Macmillan Company.
https://archive.org/details/ancienthistoryfo00botsuoft/page/n27/mode/2up

In-Text Citations

There is no difference between in-text citations for an online and printed book.

Citing a Book Found in a Database

You may find a book in a library database. It’s an easy way to access a required work and find the necessary info. Fortunately, citing a book retrieved from a database doesn’t need anything special.

You don’t need to include the database name or copy a link to the source. You can ignore the fact that you accessed an online library to find a book. To cite one, follow the citation template for a printed book. In-text citations follow the same pattern: (author’s last name, publication year).

Citing a Republished Book, with Editor

Sometimes, a book undergoes editing and gets published once again. So, there is an author, an editor, and two publication dates. How to combine them in your reference page and in-text citations? Check this below:

- - Include the author’s last name, initials, and the edited version’s publication year.
  - Write the title of the book.
  - Put an editor’s initials, their last name, and the “Ed.” notification.
  - Write the publisher.
  - Include a URL and DOI.
  - Write the following notification: (Original work published (insert a year)).

It will look like this:

- - Anderson, F. M. (2008). How to cite a textbook APA (F. M. Peterson, Ed.). EUSA. (Original work published 2007).

In-Text Citations

While mentioning the work in text, you should put the author’s last name and the publications’ year (for the original and edited publication) in round brackets: (Anderson, 2007/2008).

Citing an Audio Book in APA

Sometimes, it’s much better to listen to a book while lying on your sofa, walking along the street, or going by bus to college. So how to cite a book APA when it’s an audio one? In this case, you have to follow this pattern:

- - Author’s last name, initials (a year of the audio version release).
  - Write the narrator’s initials and the last name, and include “Narr.” in round brackets at the end of the sentence.
  - Put “Audiobook” in box brackets.
  - Write an audiobook publisher.
  - Include a DOI or URL if necessary.
  - Write an original publication year.

The entry will look like this:

- https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/1984/103069 (Original work published 1949)

In-Text Citations

With both parentheses and narrative citations, include the author’s last name and the audiobook release year: (Orwell, 2007).

The Bottom Line

Citing a book in APA is a challenging task, and it may take hours for you to create a reference list. Nonetheless, it’s better to check web resources like ours to cite books correctly. It will help you save your time and grades. Once you learn the general pattern of formatting a reference page in APA, you will understand its variations (like multiple authors or editors) much quicker. You can also ask for help an essay writing service if you have no time to create a reference list for your paper.