How to Cite a Book in APA, MLA, and Chicago
Books look like the simplest thing to cite — one author, one title, one publisher — until you have to handle an edited volume, a single chapter in a multi-author collection, a translation, a third edition, or an e-book with no page numbers. This guide walks through every major style: APA, MLA, Chicago Notes-Bibliography, Chicago Author-Date, Harvard, and a few specialised formats. If you'd rather skip the rulebook, our free citation generator can build a finished book reference from an ISBN in a couple of seconds.
What you need before you cite
Almost every style asks for the same core pieces of information. Pull them off the title page and copyright page of the book — not from the cover, and not from a bookseller's listing, which is often abridged.
- Author(s) or editor(s) — full names as printed on the title page.
- Year of publication — usually on the copyright page (the most recent copyright year for the edition you read).
- Title and subtitle — separated by a colon, even if the cover uses other punctuation.
- Edition — only include if it is the second or later edition (e.g., "3rd ed.").
- Volume number — for multivolume works.
- Translator — for any translated work.
- Publisher — the imprint named on the title page; omit "Inc.", "Ltd.", "Publishers".
- DOI or stable URL — for academic e-books and books accessed through a database.
- ISBN — not formally required by any style, but useful for looking up the book in a citation generator.
Books with multiple printings or "revised" editions can be confusing. Cite the edition you actually consulted, not the original publication date — this matters most for textbooks, reference works, and translations, where content can shift substantially between editions.
How to cite a book in APA
APA 7 follows an author-date system. Book titles are italicised and use sentence case — only the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns are capitalised. The publisher's name appears at the end with no city of publication.
Whole book — APA format
Author, A. A. (Year). Title of book: Subtitle (Edition). Publisher. https://doi.org/xxxxx
Pinker, S. (2018). Enlightenment now: The case for reason, science, humanism, and progress. Viking.
Strunk, W., & White, E. B. (2000). The elements of style (4th ed.). Allyn & Bacon.
Edited book — APA format
For an entire edited collection, place the editor's name in the author position and add "(Ed.)" or "(Eds.)" in parentheses after it.
Snyder, C. R., & Lopez, S. J. (Eds.). (2009). Oxford handbook of positive psychology (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
Chapter in an edited book — APA format
Chapter Author, A. A. (Year). Title of chapter. In E. E. Editor (Ed.), Title of book (pp. xx–xx). Publisher.
Lyubomirsky, S. (2009). The how of happiness. In C. R. Snyder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Oxford handbook of positive psychology (2nd ed., pp. 217–230). Oxford University Press.
Translated book — APA format
Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.; 2nd ed.). Vintage Books. (Original work published 1975)
In-text citations
APA in-text citations always include the author's last name and the year. For direct quotations, include a page number with "p." or "pp.".
Material progress has accelerated in nearly every measurable domain (Pinker, 2018).
Strunk and White (2000) advise writers to "omit needless words" (p. 23).
How to cite a book in MLA
MLA 9 organises every Works Cited entry around nine "core elements". For a book, the relevant ones are author, title (italicised, title case), edition, publisher, and year. MLA capitalises every important word in the title.
Whole book — MLA format
Author Last, First. Title of Book: Subtitle. Edition, Publisher, Year.
Pinker, Steven. Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. Viking, 2018.
Strunk, William, and E. B. White. The Elements of Style. 4th ed., Allyn & Bacon, 2000.
Edited book and chapter — MLA format
For an entire edited book, place the editor in the author position followed by ", editor" (or ", editors"). For a chapter, list the chapter author first, the chapter title in quotation marks, then the book title in italics, the editor introduced with "edited by", the edition, publisher, year, and page range.
Lyubomirsky, Sonja. "The How of Happiness." Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, edited by C. R. Snyder and Shane J. Lopez, 2nd ed., Oxford UP, 2009, pp. 217–30.
In-text citations
MLA uses author and page number — no comma, no year. If the author is named in the sentence, only the page number appears in parentheses.
Strunk and White urge writers to "omit needless words" (23).
How to cite a book in Chicago Notes-Bibliography
Chicago's Notes-Bibliography (NB) system is standard in history and the humanities. Sources are cited in numbered footnotes (or endnotes) and listed again in a final bibliography. The formats differ slightly between the two — notes use commas, the bibliography uses periods, and author names are inverted in the bibliography only.
Whole book — Chicago NB
1. First Last, Title of Book: Subtitle, edition (Place: Publisher, Year), page.
Last, First. Title of Book: Subtitle. Edition. Place: Publisher, Year.
1. Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (New York: Viking, 2018), 47.
Pinker, Steven. Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. New York: Viking, 2018.
Chapter in an edited book — Chicago NB
2. Sonja Lyubomirsky, "The How of Happiness," in Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, ed. C. R. Snyder and Shane J. Lopez, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 219.
Lyubomirsky, Sonja. "The How of Happiness." In Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, edited by C. R. Snyder and Shane J. Lopez, 2nd ed., 217–30. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
How to cite a book in Chicago Author-Date
Chicago's Author-Date system is preferred in the social sciences and in many sciences. It looks similar to APA — parenthetical author and year in text, alphabetical reference list at the end — but the reference list keeps title case and uses periods between elements.
Last, First. Year. Title of Book: Subtitle. Edition. Place: Publisher.
Pinker, Steven. 2018. Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. New York: Viking.
In-text: (Pinker 2018, 47) — no comma between author and
year, comma before the page number.
How to cite a book in Harvard
Harvard is an author-date system used widely in UK and Australian universities. Conventions vary by institution, but the most common layout places the year in parentheses immediately after the author, followed by the title in italics.
Last, F. (Year) Title of book: Subtitle. Edition. Place: Publisher.
Strunk, W. and White, E.B. (2000) The elements of style. 4th edn. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
In-text: (Strunk and White, 2000, p. 23).
Editions, translations, and multivolume works
Edition statements
The first edition is never noted. Anything from the second edition onward should be marked: APA uses "(2nd ed.)" after the title; MLA uses "2nd ed.," before the publisher; Chicago uses "2nd ed." after the title in the same position. For a "revised edition" without a number, write "rev. ed." in all three styles.
Translated works
Always credit the translator. APA uses "(A. Translator, Trans.)" in the title element; MLA introduces the translator with "Translated by First Last" after the title; Chicago NB writes "Trans. First Last" (footnote) or "Translated by First Last" (bibliography).
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan, 2nd ed., Vintage Books, 1995.
Multivolume works
For a single volume of a multivolume set, name the volume number and the volume title (if any). When citing the whole set, give the total number of volumes after the title.
Cicchetti, D. (Ed.). (2016). Developmental psychopathology: Vol. 1. Theory and method (3rd ed.). Wiley.
Cicchetti, Dante, ed. Developmental Psychopathology. 4 vols. 3rd ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2016.
E-books and digital editions
Modern style guides treat e-books as books, not as a separate source type. The format of the file (Kindle, EPUB, PDF) is no longer required in APA 7 or MLA 9 unless the version you used differs in content from the print edition. If the e-book has a DOI, include it; otherwise add a stable URL or note the format.
Ostrom, E. (2015). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action (Rev. ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316423936
Pinker, Steven. Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. Kindle ed., Viking, 2018.
Common mistakes
Citing the cover instead of the title page
Book covers often shorten titles or omit the subtitle for design reasons. Always pull the title, subtitle, and publisher from the title page and the year from the copyright page.
Confusing author and editor
For an edited collection, the editor goes in the author position with "(Ed.)" or "editor" attached. For a chapter, the chapter author comes first; the editor appears later, introduced with "In" (APA), "edited by" (MLA, Chicago bibliography), or "ed." (Chicago footnote).
Wrong title capitalisation
APA uses sentence case for book titles. MLA, Chicago, and Harvard (most variants) use title case. Mixing the two is one of the most visible errors in a finished bibliography.
Omitting the edition
If you read the third edition, cite the third edition. The first edition often differs significantly in content, page numbers, and even authorship — particularly for textbooks.
Including ISBN or city + state in modern APA
APA 7 dropped the city of publication and never asked for the ISBN. Including either is a sign of an outdated style guide.
Citing republished classics with the modern year only
For a republished classic (for example, a 2003 reprint of a 1925 novel), include both years. APA writes "(1925/2003)" in the in-text citation; MLA uses the original publication year in the entry when relevant. This signals to readers that the work is historical.
Quick reference summary
| Style | Reference list entry | In-text |
|---|---|---|
| APA 7 | Pinker, S. (2018). Enlightenment now. Viking. | (Pinker, 2018, p. 47) |
| MLA 9 | Pinker, Steven. Enlightenment Now. Viking, 2018. | (Pinker 47) |
| Chicago NB (bib) | Pinker, Steven. Enlightenment Now. New York: Viking, 2018. | Footnote: Pinker, Enlightenment Now, 47. |
| Chicago Author-Date | Pinker, Steven. 2018. Enlightenment Now. New York: Viking. | (Pinker 2018, 47) |
| Harvard | Pinker, S. (2018) Enlightenment now. New York: Viking. | (Pinker, 2018, p. 47) |
Cite books faster with CiteGenie
Switching styles by hand is slow and error-prone. CiteGenie's free citation generator takes an ISBN, a book title, or a DOI and returns a finished entry in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, Vancouver, IEEE, and a dozen other styles. Editors, multi-volume works, and translated titles are handled automatically — and you can switch the output style without re-entering any of the source data.
For chapters in edited collections, paste the chapter DOI (most academic publishers issue one per chapter) and the citation generator will return a fully-formatted chapter reference, including the editor names and page range.
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