Skip to Main Content

Citation Style - APA

About Citing Books

For each type of source in this guide, both the general format and an example will be provided.

Information on citing and several of the examples were drawn from the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.).

Numbers in brackets refer to specific pages in the manual.

Book with no Author

General Format  
 Book title: Subtitle. (Year). Publisher.
  
Example 
The business of roses. (1974). Little and Long. 

Book with one Author or Editor (p. 203)

The general format below refers to a book with one author. 
 If you are dealing with one editor instead of one author, you would simply insert the editor's name in the place where the author's name is now, followed by "(Ed.)" without the quotation marks.  The rest of the format would remain the same.
 
General Format 
  Author Surname, First Initial. Second Initial. (Year). Book title: Subtitle. Publisher.
  
Example 
Beeson, M. (2007). Regionalism and globalization in East Asia: Politics, security and
economic development. Palgrave MacMillan.

Book with Two Authors or Editors (p. 202)

The general format below refers to a book with two authors. 
 If you are dealing with two editors instead of two authors, you would simply insert the names of the editors into the place where the authors' names are now, followed by "(Eds.)" without the quotation marks (see the Example).  The rest of the format would remain the same.
 
General Format  
Author Surname, First Initial. Second Initial., & Author Surname, First Initial.
Second Initial. (Year). Book title: Subtitle. Publisher.
  
Example 
  Burley, J., & Harris, J. (Eds.). (2002). A companion to genethics. Blackwell.

Book with Three to Five Authors or Editors (pp. 177, 202)

The general format below refers to a book with three authors.  For a book with four or five authors, you would add the additional authors' names after the first three.
If you are dealing with a book that has three to five editors instead of authors, you would simply insert the names of the editors into the place where the authors' names are now, followed by "(Eds.)" without the quotation marks (as per the example).  The rest of the format would remain the same.
  
General Format  
Author Surname, First Initial. Second Initial., Author Surname, First Initial.
Second Initial., & Author Surname, First Initial. Second Initial. (Year).  
Book title: Subtitle. Publisher.
  
Example  
Johnson, N. G., Roberts, M. C., & Worell, J. (Eds.). (1999). Beyond appearance:
A new look at adolescent girls. American Psychological Association.

Article or Chapter in an Edited Book (pp. 202, 204)

Helpful Tip
Only use this when citing an edited book. This is a book that has an editor, with articles
     or chapters written by different authors. Do NOT cite a chapter in a book that has been 
     entirely written by the same author(s) -- instead, cite the whole book.        
 
General Format 
  Author Surname [of Chapter or Article], First Initial. Second Initial. (Year).
Article or chapter title. In Editor First Initial. Second Initial. Surname
(Ed.), Book title: Subtitle (pp. page range of article or chapter).Publisher.
  
Example
Lawrence, J. A., &  Dodds, A. E. (2003). Goal-directed activities and life-span
development. In J. Valsiner & K. Connolly (Eds.), Handbook of developmental
psychology (pp. 517-533). Sage Publications.

When there are three or more authors

List by last names and initials; commas separate author names, while the last author name is preceded by an ampersand (&). Example:

Siyal, S., Saeed, M., Pahi, M. H., Solangi, R., & Xin, C. (2021). They can’t treat you well under abusive supervision: Investigating the impact of job satisfaction and extrinsic motivation on healthcare employees. Rationality and Society, 33(4), 401-423. https://doi.org/10.1177/10434631211033660

MORE THAN TWENTY AUTHORS

List by last names and initials; commas separate author names. After the first 19 authors’ names, use an ellipsis (i.e., …) in place of the remaining author names. Thereafter, end with the final author's name (do not place an & before it). There should be no more than twenty names in the citation in total. Example:

Zhang, S. E., Wang, J., Liu, L., Meng, D. X., Wang, H. N., Zhao, X., ... Sun, T. (2021).