APA Book Citation Generator

Use the APA Book Citation Generator to create an APA 7 reference and matching in-text citation for a whole book, ebook, or textbook. Enter the book details manually or, when ISBN lookup is enabled, start with an ISBN and review the author or editor, year, title, edition, publisher, and DOI or URL before using the citation.

The edition matters. An ISBN lookup can identify a specific edition, but you should still check that the retrieved record matches the copy you actually read.

How to Cite a Book in APA 7

A standard authored-book reference follows this pattern:

**Author, A. A. (Year). *Title of book*. Publisher.**

If the book is not the first edition, add the edition after the title:

**Author, A. A. (Year). *Title of book* (2nd ed.). Publisher.**

If a DOI is available, add it at the end as a URL:

https://doi.org/xxxxx

The matching in-text citation normally uses the author’s surname and publication year.

Parenthetical: (Author, Year) Narrative: Author (Year)

For a direct quotation, add a page number or another appropriate locator when available.

Create a Book Citation Step by Step

1. Confirm that you are citing the whole book

Use the book workflow when your reference is for the book as a whole.

Typical examples include:

• a printed book
• an ebook
• a textbook
• a monograph
• a whole edited book

Do not use the whole-book form when you are citing a chapter written by a different author inside an edited collection.

That type of source needs the chapter author, chapter title, book editors, book title, page range, and publisher. Use the dedicated book-chapter workflow when it is available.

2. Enter the book manually or use ISBN lookup

You can always enter the bibliographic information yourself.

When ISBN lookup is enabled, APA Citation Builder can use an ISBN to help retrieve book metadata.

An ISBN identifies a particular publication or edition rather than every version of a work. Open Library, for example, distinguishes a general Work from individual Editions, and edition records can contain details such as the publisher, ISBN, and publication date.

This is why you should compare an ISBN result with the actual book before accepting it.

3. Review the author or editor

For an authored book, enter the author or authors in the order shown on the book.

For a whole edited book with no credited author, the editor or editors can take the author position in the reference, followed by the appropriate editor designation.

Do not confuse a whole edited book with a chapter in an edited collection. The contributor roles are different.

4. Check the publication year

Use the publication year of the edition you actually used.

A later edition can have a different year from the original work. If you used the third edition, for example, do not automatically cite the first edition’s year simply because that is when the book was originally published.

5. Enter the book title

Use the title and subtitle of the book.

In an APA reference, the book title is italicized and written in sentence case. In general, this means capitalizing:

• the first word of the title
• the first word after a colon or similar title division
• proper nouns and other words that normally require capitalization

Review imported title capitalization rather than assuming a library record has already been converted to APA sentence case.

6. Add the edition when needed

Do not write an edition statement for the first edition.

For later editions, include the edition in parentheses immediately after the title, for example:

(2nd ed.)

The edition information is not italicized.

Make sure the edition number matches the copy you used.

7. Check the publisher

APA 7 book references include the publisher but no longer require the publisher’s geographic location.

Enter the publisher associated with the edition you used.

Do not add a city, state, or country simply because it appears on an older citation or on the book’s copyright page.

8. Add a DOI or URL when applicable

If the book has a DOI, present it as:

https://doi.org/xxxxx

For an ebook without a DOI, whether a URL belongs in the reference depends on how the book is made available.

Books retrieved from ordinary academic research databases are generally cited like print books and usually do not include the database name or database URL.

A freely available online book can include a direct URL when appropriate.

What Information Do You Need for an APA Book Citation?

For a typical book, check the following fields:

The most reliable place to confirm these details is the book itself or the publisher’s authoritative record for the edition you used.

APA Book Citation Examples

The examples below are fictional and are included only to demonstrate common APA 7 structures.

Book with one author

Reference

Carter, L. M. (2024). *Research design for field measurements*. North Valley Press.

Parenthetical citation

(Carter, 2024)

Narrative citation

Carter (2024)

Book with two authors

Reference

Rahman, S. T., & Ellis, J. P. (2025). *Practical methods for environmental data analysis*. Meridian Academic.

Parenthetical citation

(Rahman & Ellis, 2025)

Narrative citation

Rahman and Ellis (2025)

Second edition of a book

Reference

Morgan, A. R. (2026). *Applied measurement uncertainty* (2nd ed.). Westbridge Academic.

Parenthetical citation

(Morgan, 2026)

Book with a DOI

Reference

Navarro, P. D. (2025). *Open research workflows for quantitative science*. Horizon Research Press. https://doi.org/10.xxxx/example.2025.001

The DOI above is a placeholder used to demonstrate the reference structure, not a real source identifier.

How to Cite an Ebook in APA

APA 7 does not require a separate ebook label simply because you read a book electronically.

For a normal ebook, use the same core elements as the corresponding print book:

**Author. (Year). *Title*. Publisher.**

Then add a DOI when one is available.

If a book is freely available on the web and a URL is appropriate, include the URL.

For an ebook retrieved from a normal academic database, the database name and database URL are usually omitted because the work can often be found through multiple services.

Do not add [eBook], a device name, or the name of an ordinary academic database simply because you read the book on a screen.

How to Cite a Textbook in APA

A textbook is usually cited using the same whole-book format as another authored book.

You need to identify the exact edition you used.

A textbook citation can be wrong even when the author and title are correct if the reference points to a different edition.

For example, check:

• edition number
• publication year
• publisher
• ISBN
• DOI, if any

If your instructor assigned the fourth edition, do not cite metadata for the third edition.

Why the ISBN Needs to Match the Edition

An ISBN is useful because it can identify a particular book edition or format.

Different versions of what readers think of as the “same book” can have different ISBNs, including:

• different editions
• hardback and paperback versions
• revised editions
• translations
• regional editions
• other publication formats

Open Library’s current API documentation explicitly distinguishes a Work, which groups related editions, from an Edition, which can contain edition-specific data such as an ISBN and publisher.

If ISBN lookup returns a record, check at least:

• title
• author
• edition
• publication year
• publisher

The lookup result should match the book in your hands or the ebook record you actually used.

What If the Book Has No ISBN?

An ISBN is not required to create an APA book citation.

Enter the book manually using the bibliographic information from the source.

A citation can be complete without an ISBN because the ISBN itself is normally not included as an element in the finished APA reference.

In APA Citation Builder, ISBN is primarily useful as a lookup input when that feature is enabled.

What If the Book Has a DOI?

Some books have DOIs.

When a DOI is available for the book you used, include it in URL format:

https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx

Crossref recommends including DOIs when they are available and notes that books and book chapters can have different DOI records.

Do not assume that a chapter-level DOI is the DOI for the entire book. Check what the identifier actually resolves to.

Print Book vs. Ebook

For many ordinary books, the main APA reference structure is the same whether you used print or an electronic copy.

The important question is not simply “print or ebook?” but whether the electronic version requires an identifier or retrievable URL in the reference.

Print book

Usually ends with the publisher unless a DOI is available.

Ebook with a DOI

Include the DOI as a URL.

Ebook from an ordinary academic database

Usually cite it like the corresponding print book. Do not add the database URL simply because that is how you accessed it.

Freely available online book

A public URL may be appropriate when the work is available directly online and has no DOI.

How to Cite an Edited Book

If the entire book is credited to one or more editors rather than authors, place the editors in the author position and identify their role.

A general pattern is:

**Editor, A. A. (Ed.). (Year). *Title of book*. Publisher.**

For multiple editors, use the appropriate plural designation.

This is different from citing one contribution inside an edited book.

If you are citing a chapter written by a chapter author, the chapter author belongs at the beginning of the reference and the book editors appear later as part of the container information.

Do not enter a chapter author as though that person authored the whole book.

Whole Book vs. Book Chapter

This distinction is especially important because the references look different.

Cite the whole book when:

• you are referring to the book as a whole
• the same author or authors wrote the entire authored book
• your claim relates broadly to the complete work

Use an edited-book chapter reference when:

• the chapter has its own author
• the book has editors who are different from the chapter author
• you are citing that specific contribution in the collection

A chapter number in a normal authored textbook does not automatically require a chapter reference.

If one author wrote the entire book, citing a passage from Chapter 4 usually means citing the whole book and using an in-text locator where appropriate.