Cite a Book

Books are intellectual property. If you are writing an essay, article or paper of any kind, and you draw upon or quote a book, you must give proper credit to the author. Not doing so is considered plagiarism.[1]The various ways to cite a book are listed below; all are proper and acceptable, but if you are writing a college paper, check with your professor to see if you must adhere to one particular citation style.

Steps

Citation Templates and Sample Citations

Doc:MLA Citation for Book,APA Citation for Book,Chicago Citation for Book

Review the Most Common Citation Styles

  1. Familiarize yourself with the accepted citation styles. Use only one style when citing a book reference—each style has very specific rules about capitalization, punctuation and placement of the facts. That said, all styles are designed for the same purpose: to give proper credit where credit is due. Listed below are the most common styles:
    • Modern Language Association (MLA) style. This is a citation style most often used within the liberal arts and humanities departments of universities.
    • American Psychological Association (APA) style. This citation style is most often used within the social sciences departments of universities and is always used when writing for the American Psychological Association.
    • The Chicago Manual of Style. This citation style is often used for writing papers in literature, history and the arts. However, the majority of scholars use either APA or MLA style for citations.

Citing a Book Using APA Style

  1. Cite book references within the text and on the reference page. The APA (American Psychological Association) requires book citations to occur in both places. For example, if you were citing the book, The Epic of America, you would reference it within your text with the title (italicized) and the year of publication: The Epic of America, (1931). You would also properly cite the book on your reference page with the specific formatting rules for citing authors, editors and books:
    • Citing books: Author, A. A. (Year of publication). Title of work (italicize and capitalize the first letter of the title word and the first letter of the first word in a subtitle. Location: Publisher. For example: Susanka, S. (2007). The not so big life: Making room for what really matters. New York, NY: Random House.
    • Citing an edited Book with no author: Brown, C., & Smith, A. (Eds.). (2010). How to make widgets. Boston, MA: ABC Publishing.
    • Citing a book with both an author and editor: Gray, R. (2010). The path to glory. A. Anderson (Ed.). Boston, MA: ABC Publishing.
    • Citing a translated book. Pierre, P. S. (1904). A journey through the mind. (T. Garvey, Trans.). New York, NY: ABC Publishing.
    • Citing a book that is not a first edition. Aiken, M. E., (1997). The gold standard (7th ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
    • Citing an article or a chapter in an edited book. Lander, J. M., & Goss, M. (2010). How the west was settled. In T. Grayson (Ed.), The Rockies and beyond (pp. 107-123). New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
    • Citing a multivolume, edited work. Paulson, P. (Ed.). (1964). Dictionary of inventions (Vols. 1-6). New York, NY: Scribner's.

Citing Books Using MLA Style

  1. Cite a book in MLA style both within the text and on a “Works Cited” page. The text citation is parenthetical, which means the source reference is surrounded by parenthesis after you have used a quote, or after you have paraphrased something from a book.
  2. Always cite the author, (and/or editor) the book title, publication date, publisher, place of publication and the medium (print, web, DVD, etc.)
  3. Place your Works Cited references so that they correspond exactly with your in-text references. The quotation or phrase you use in the text of your paper has to appear first on the left-hand margin of the corresponding entry on your Works Cited Page.
  4. Cite books using the author-page style. The MLA format follows the author-page method of in-text citation. Only the author of the book, and the page number or numbers that refer to your quote or paraphrased passage must be in your text, but your in-text citation must also be completely referenced on your Works Cited page.
    • Kingsolver stated that his prose was considered by many to be "at times, pedantic" (Kingsolver 125). This informs your reader that the remarks by the author named Kingsolver can be found on page 125. Your readers can find the name of the book and other pertinent details on your Works Cited page, which will cite the corresponding reference to this in-text citation:
    • Kingsolver, Ronald. Give Me a Moment. New York: Random House, 1932. Print.
  5. Use proper citations for multiple editions. Again, page numbers are required, but it is important to provide detailed information about the edition of the book you are quoting, since someone reading your paper will need to know which edition to refer to. (This rule almost always applies to classic and literary works.)
    • The corresponding reference on your Works Cited page (for a work that has two or more editions) must include the page number of the edition you quoted from followed by a semicolon, and the the volume, part, chapter, section or paragraph. Use the required abbreviations without capitals:
    • Volume (vol.)
    • Book (bk.)
    • Part (pt)
    • Chapter (ch.)
    • Section (sec.)
    • Paragraph (par.)
  6. Give credit to all authors. If you are citing a book that has more than 1 author, you must include the names of all authors in your citation:
    • Berger, Mitry, and Neilson state that tougher gun control laws need to be passed (176). The authors state "Tighter gun control in the United States in no way violates the Second Amendment rights to bear arms" (Berger, Mitry, and Neilson 176).
  7. Mention all books cited by a single author. If you use quotes from 2 or more books by the same author, you must reference each book in your text and on your Works Cited page:
    • Lipton states that daily writing practice is “critical to a writer’s success” (Practice, Practice, Practice! 5). However, Lipton also states that “one must sometimes walk away and do anything but write for a week at a time” (A Writer’s Advice 7). These citations inform the reader that quotes are being used from 2 different books by the same author.
  8. Cite multi volume works. If you quote from different volumes of a multi-volume work, you must include the volume number in your citation. That number is followed by a colon, a space and the page number(s):
    • …as Tangener wrote in A History of the Universe (1: 87-101). This tells the reader that the quote can be found in volume 1 between pages 87 and 101.

Citing an Electronic Book

  1. Don’t neglect to reference an electronic (ebook) book. Generally speaking, the citation should include the same elements as the citation for a print book: author, date and title. However, ebooks often don’t have page numbers, so the citation doesn’t require listing them. In addition to the basic reference information, ebook citations should include the source (URL or DOI):
    • Anderson, R. (2010). The Love of Money [Kindle]. Retrieved from http://www.xxxx. Refer to the latest edition of the style guide you are using to cite your references for electronic sources. This type of citation is still undergoing multiple revisions by all style guides. [2]

Tips

  • Let your common sense be your guide. It’s not necessary to document your sources for common proverbs, or for familiar quotations that have been around for so long they are considered public domain. In other words, don’t waste your time trying to find the original source of “A stitch in time saves nine.”
  • The book publisher’s location should list the two letter state postal abbreviation (do not use periods.) For example, write California as CA and Florida as FL.
  • Always use “pp” for page numbers; do not write “page xx.”

Note: For "Location," you should always list the city and the state using the two letter postal abbreviation without periods (New York, NY).

  • If your style guide requires just the last name of an author, but you are citing a book that has 2 authors with the same last name, you may use the first initial of each author.

Warnings

  • Always refer to the latest edition of any style guide. Graduate students should also refer to the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing.
  • Style guides are stocked in the reference section of most public libraries.
  • Don’t confuse AP style with APA style. AP refers to the Associated Press and is the writing style used by journalists.

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_understand_plagiarism_1/6/1668/427073.cw/index.html
  2. ↑ http://chronicle.com/article/E-Books-Varied-Formats-Make/126246/
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