How to Cite a Book in APA 7th Edition — CitationGeneratorAPA.com

Books are among the most cited sources in academic writing, yet the format trips up students at every step — especially since APA 7th edition dropped the city of publication that APA 6 required. This guide walks through every book scenario: single author, multiple authors, edited volumes, chapters within edited books, and e-books with or without a DOI.

Basic APA 7 Book Citation Format

The standard reference list entry for a whole book in APA 7 is:

Format

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of book: Subtitle in sentence case. Publisher.

Example — single author

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Example — two authors, later edition

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

Required Fields

Field	Format	Notes
Author(s)	`Last, F. M.`	Last name, comma, then initials. Use & before the final author. Up to 20 authors listed in full before truncating.
Year	`(2024)`	Year of the edition you are citing, in parentheses, followed by a period.
Title	Italicized, sentence case	Capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns.
Edition	`(3rd ed.)`	Include in parentheses after the title — but only if this is not the first edition. Not italicized.
Publisher	Publisher name	APA 7 no longer requires the city of publication. Give the publisher name only.
DOI or URL	`https://doi.org/…`	Include a DOI whenever one exists. For e-books without a DOI, include the URL only if the book would otherwise be difficult to locate.

APA 7 vs. APA 6 APA 6 required you to list the city and state (or country) of publication before the publisher name. APA 7 dropped this entirely. If you see "New York, NY: Penguin" in an older guide, that format is out of date.

Edited Book

When a book is compiled by editors rather than written by a single author, place the editor(s) in the author position and add (Ed.) or (Eds.) in parentheses after the name(s).

Format

Editor, E. E. (Ed.). (Year). Title of book. Publisher.

Example

Lopez, S. J., & Snyder, C. R. (Eds.). (2009). Oxford handbook of positive psychology (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.

Chapter in an Edited Book

When citing a specific chapter from an edited volume, the chapter author goes in the author position and the book editors appear in the "In" element. Include the page range of the chapter.

Format

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of chapter: Sentence case. In E. E. Editor (Ed.), Title of book (pp. xx–xx). Publisher.

Example

Bandura, A. (1994). Self-efficacy. In V. S. Ramachaudran (Ed.), Encyclopedia of human behavior (Vol. 4, pp. 71–81). Academic Press.

Note that the chapter title is not italicized, while the book title is. This is the reverse of how journal articles work (article title not italicized, journal name italicized).

E-Book with a DOI

Treat an e-book the same as a print book but add the DOI at the end. A DOI is always preferred over a URL when both exist.

Example

Brown, B. (2021). Atlas of the heart: Mapping meaningful connection and the language of human experience. Random House. https://doi.org/10.1234/atlasoftheheart

In-Text Citations for Books

Paraphrase

Give the author's last name and year in parentheses: (Kahneman, 2011). In a narrative citation, write Kahneman (2011) argued that…

Direct quote

Include the page number: (Kahneman, 2011, p. 24). If no page numbers exist (some e-books), use a chapter or paragraph number instead: (Kahneman, 2011, Chapter 3).

Edited book cited as a whole

(Lopez & Snyder, 2009) — cite the editors as you would authors.

Chapter in an edited book

(Bandura, 1994) — cite the chapter author, not the book editor.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Do not include the city of publication — APA 7 removed it entirely.
Do not use title case for the book title — only the first word, proper nouns, and the first word after a colon are capitalized.
Do not forget to italicize the book title (and only the book title — the edition note is not italicized).
Do not omit the edition number for books beyond their first edition.
Do not write "(Ed.)" when citing a specific chapter — only use it on the reference for the edited book as a whole.
Do not add "Retrieved from" before a URL or DOI — this prefix was removed in APA 7.

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