Skip to Main Content

APA Style Guide for Citations and Student Papers: Books

Changes New to the 7th ed.

  • Do not include "Retrieved from" before a URL 
  • Do not include the city of a publisher
  • In most cases, it is recommended not to include database information. See here for more information.

Examples

Book with one author

Skloot, R. (2010). The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks. Crown Publishers.

Books with multiple authors (up to 20)

Campbell, R., Martin, C. R., & Fabos, B. (2015). Media & culture: Mass communication in a digital age. Bedford/St. Martin’s.

An edition of a book

Santos, R. (2013). Crime analysis with crime mapping (3rd ed.). Sage.

Book compiled by an editor

Pinsky, R. (Ed.). (2013). The best of the best American poetry. Scribner Poetry. 

A work in an anthology or reference work, with author

Eggers, D. (2104). The man at the river. In R. Atwan (Ed.), The best American essays 2014 (pp. 31-33). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Entry from a reference work, no author attributed to the entry

Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (2004). In J. K. Muir (Ed.), The encyclopedia of superheroes on film and television (pp. 153-190). McFarland

eBook from a library database

Ying, L. (2010). The a to z of modern Chinese literature. Scarecrow Press. 

Multi-volume book

Myers, J. (2007). Surveillance cameras. In W. G. Staples (Ed.). Encyclopedia of privacy (Vol. 2, pp. 84-86). Greenwood.

 

Information

Author - The author is the person who has written the content of the book. 

Title - This is the title of the work that you are referencing in your research paper. In the case of books, this can be either the title of the whole book, or, if it is an anthology or reference book, the title refers to an individual entry within the book.

Editor - An editor is the person who prepared a book written by others for publication. One example of a book prepared by an editor would be a later edition of a classic novel in which the editor includes notes and an introduction from another well-known person. Also, many anthologies or reference works are written by many authors and compiled by an editor.

Publisher - The publisher is the company or person who published the book. You will find this information on the title page of a book.

Date of Publication - For books, you will include the year that the book is published. Do not include months and days.

Anthology - An anthology is a collection of works, such as a book of poems or essays.

Reference Work - A reference work, or reference book, is a collection of facts and useful information that easily accessible. For example, dictionaries, encyclopedias, atlases, and almanacs are all reference works. This term is easily (and understandably!) confused with "references," as in the citations for information referenced in a research paper.

©2022 Houston Community College Libraries