Quick answer: An APA book citation in the 7th edition follows the pattern Author, A. A. (Year). Title of the book: Subtitle (edition if not the first). Publisher. DOI if available. The title is italicized and in sentence case, the publisher location is no longer included, and print books and e-books are cited the same way.

In the text, cite the author and year, such as (Creswell & Creswell, 2018), with a page number for quotations.

Books are among the most cited sources in a thesis, especially in literature reviews, theoretical frameworks and methodology chapters, and they come in more varieties than journal articles: authored and edited books, later editions, translations, chapters in edited volumes, multivolume works and reference entries. This APA book citation guide gives the 7th edition pattern for each type, explains the in-text format, and lists the small errors that cost marks, with a checklist to run before you submit.

The basic APA book citation pattern

Put together: Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (5th ed.). SAGE.

On your reference page, every entry is double-spaced with a 0.5-inch hanging indent and listed alphabetically; the guide to the APA reference list step by step covers the page layout.

APA book citation examples by type

The examples below follow APA 7 patterns. Those marked illustrative use invented authors and titles to show the format; the others are real publications.

Book with one author (illustrative)

Morgan, L. K. (2022). Writing the literature review: A practical guide for graduate students. Northfield Academic Press.

Book with a group author

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

Because the author and publisher are the same, the publisher is omitted.

Edited book, no author (illustrative)

Patel, R., & Okafor, M. (Eds.). (2021). Qualitative methods in health research. Harbour University Press.

Chapter in an edited book (illustrative)

Nguyen, T. H. (2021). Interviewing vulnerable participants. In R. Patel & M. Okafor (Eds.), Qualitative methods in health research (pp. 45–68). Harbour University Press.

The chapter title is not italicized; the book title is. Editors’ initials come before their surnames, and the page range of the chapter follows the book title with “pp.”.

Chapter in an edited book, later edition (illustrative)

Nguyen, T. H. (2024). Interviewing vulnerable participants. In R. Patel & M. Okafor (Eds.), Qualitative methods in health research (2nd ed., pp. 51–75). Harbour University Press.

Translated book

Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man’s search for meaning (I. Lasch, Trans.). Beacon Press. (Original work published 1946)

In the text, give both dates, original first: (Frankl, 1946/2006).

Multivolume work (illustrative)

Ellis, J. (Ed.). (2019). Encyclopedia of educational research (Vols. 1–3). Harbour University Press.

Book with an author and an editor (illustrative)

Hart, D. (2020). Collected lectures on educational theory (S. Brennan, Ed.). Northfield Academic Press.

When a book has both an author and an editor, the author stays in the author position and the editor appears in parentheses after the title, with initials first and “Ed.” after the name.

Special cases: no author, no date, reprints and reference entries

• No author. Move the title to the author position: Guide to graduate study. (2023). Harbour University Press. In the text, use the italicized title or its first few words with the year. This example is illustrative.
• No date. Write (n.d.) in place of the year, and use n.d. in the in-text citation as well.
• Republished classics. For an older work reissued by a modern publisher, cite the edition you read and add “(Original work published Year)” at the end, with both dates in the text, as in the translated example above.
• Entry in a dictionary or encyclopedia. Cite the entry title, then “In” and the reference work’s editors, title and page or URL. For online reference works that are updated continuously, such as some dictionaries, APA adds a retrieval date because the content changes.
• Book in a series. APA does not normally include the series name in the reference; the author, year, title, edition and publisher are enough to locate the book.

From copyright page to reference: a worked example

Suppose the title page of a book you used reads “Writing the Literature Review: A Practical Guide for Graduate Students, Second Edition, Lena K. Morgan”, and the copyright page says it was published by Northfield Academic Press, with the second edition dated 2024 and a DOI printed beneath the ISBN. This example is illustrative. Work through the elements in order:

1. Author: Morgan, L. K.
2. Year: the year of the edition you read, (2024), not the first edition’s year.
3. Title: sentence case, italicized, with the first word of the subtitle capitalized: Writing the literature review: A practical guide for graduate students
4. Edition: (2nd ed.), outside the italics.
5. Publisher: Northfield Academic Press, with no city.
6. DOI: the DOI from the copyright page, written as an https://doi.org/ link with no final period.

The ISBN is never included in an APA reference. If you cannot find a DOI on the copyright page or the publisher’s page for the book, leave it out rather than searching for one that may belong to a different edition.

E-books, audiobooks and online books

APA 7 treats print books and e-books the same way. Do not add the format, platform or device, so there is no “Kindle edition” or e-book label in square brackets in the reference. The only differences concern links:

• If the book has a DOI, add it at the end, whether you read it in print or online.
• If it has no DOI and came from an academic research database, end the reference with the publisher, exactly as for a print book.
• If it has no DOI and came from a website, such as an open-access book on a publisher or repository site, add the URL.
• Audiobooks are cited like books, with a narrator note after the title only when the narration is relevant to your discussion.

For e-books without page numbers, use a chapter, section or paragraph locator in quotation citations. Do not use Kindle location numbers.

In-text citations for books

• Parenthetical: (Creswell & Creswell, 2018)
• Narrative: Creswell and Creswell (2018) distinguish three broad approaches.
• Quotation: add the page of the passage you quote, as in this illustrative example: (Morgan, 2022, p. 41).
• Chapter in an edited book: cite the chapter author, not the editors: (Nguyen, 2021).
• Translated or republished work: (Frankl, 1946/2006).
• Three or more authors: first author plus “et al.” from the first citation.

For the full set of in-text rules, including multiple works and missing information, see the guide to in-text citations in APA 7, and for what changed between editions, the APA 7th edition changes summary.

What changed from APA 6 for book citations

1. No publisher location. APA 6 required the city and state or country; APA 7 drops it.
2. More authors listed. Up to 20 authors appear in the reference, rather than seven.
3. No e-book format labels. APA 6 entries often included a Kindle version label in square brackets or “Retrieved from”; APA 7 removes both.
4. DOIs as links. DOIs are written in the https://doi.org/ format.
5. “Et al.” from the first citation for three or more authors in the text.

Where to find the details you need

The best source for a book reference is the copyright page, usually on the back of the title page. It gives the publisher, the year of this edition, the edition number and, for many academic books, the DOI or ISBN. Use the year of the edition you actually read, not the year of the first edition. Library catalogues and publisher pages are reliable backups. Avoid copying references from online stores or search results, which often list the wrong year or edition, and check every reference exported by a reference manager against the copyright page, because imported metadata frequently uses title case or omits editors.

Common book citation mistakes

• Using title case for the book title instead of sentence case.
• Italicizing the chapter title instead of the book title.
• Including the publisher’s city.
• Citing the editors instead of the chapter author when you used one chapter.
• Writing “Kindle edition” or the platform name.
• Giving the first edition’s year when you read a later edition.
• Leaving out the DOI for a book that has one.
• Putting the edition inside the italics.

Book citation checklist

• Author surnames and initials in the right order, with “&” before the last.
• Year of the edition you used, in parentheses.
• Title in italics and sentence case, with the subtitle’s first word capitalized.
• Edition number in parentheses, not italicized, if it is not the first.
• Publisher name only, omitted if the same as the author.
• DOI if available; URL only for books from websites without a DOI.
• Chapter references include the editors, the book title and the page range.
• Each reference matches an in-text citation exactly.

Books in a thesis: practical tips

Theses often cite the same textbook for several chapters or quote it several times. Keep one reference entry for each edition you use, and cite specific pages for every quotation. If you used two editions of the same book, for example an older edition for a historical argument and the current edition for definitions, list both and make sure each in-text citation uses the correct year. When a methods textbook is your main justification for a design choice, cite the chapter or page that supports it rather than the whole book, because examiners may check. And if your department prefers a different style for books, such as Harvard, the site’s comparison of MLA and APA format shows how the patterns differ across styles.

For a related guide, see the APA reference page.

Where Tesify fits

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Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

How do you cite a book in APA 7?

Use Author, A. A. (Year). Title of the book in italics and sentence case (edition if not the first). Publisher. Add a DOI if the book has one.

Does APA 7 include the publisher location for books?

No. APA 7 omits the publisher location. Give only the publisher’s name, and leave it out if the publisher is the same as the author.

How do I cite a chapter in an edited book in APA?

Cite the chapter author, year and chapter title, then In, the editors’ initials and surnames with (Eds.), the book title in italics, the page range with pp., and the publisher.

How do I cite an e-book in APA 7?

Cite it like a print book, without the format or platform. Add a DOI if it has one, or a URL if it came from a website without a DOI.

How do I show the edition in an APA book citation?

Put the edition in parentheses after the title, not in italics, for example (5th ed.). Leave it out for first editions.

How do I cite a translated book in APA?

Add the translator after the title, such as (I. Lasch, Trans.), end with the original publication year in parentheses, and give both years in the text, such as (Frankl, 1946/2006).

Is the book title italicized in APA?

Yes. Book titles are italicized and written in sentence case. Chapter titles within an edited book are not italicized.

What year do I use for a book with several editions?

Use the year of the edition you actually read, taken from its copyright page, and give the edition number if it is not the first.