APA Citation Style 7th Edition

About Citing Books

When you're finding books for your research, make note of the author name(s), book title, publication date, and publisher.

For each type of source in this guide, both the general form and a specific example will be provided.

The following format will be used:

In-text Citation (Paraphrase) - entry that appears in the body of your paper when you express the ideas of a researcher or author using your own words.

In-text Citation (Direct Quotation) - entry that appears in the body of your paper, word for word from a source, and in quotation marks

References - entry that appears at the end of your paper.

Information on citing and several of the examples were drawn from Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. 

Numbers in parentheses refer to specific pages in the manual.

General Formatting

• Alphabetize your reference list by the first word of the citation (usually the author's last name).
• Double space all of the citations on your reference page.
• Indent the second & following lines of the citation 5-7 spaces.
• Up to 20 authors: Include surname and initials for up to 20 authors. Wingert, P., Smith, J., & Brown, P., ...
• More than 20 authors: After the 19th author, add an ellipsis [...]  to replace additional authors, then include the final author's surname and initials.
• Capitalize ONLY the first word of the document title and proper nouns. If there is a colon in the title, capitalize the first word after the colon.
• No period after URL for e-books.
• No retrieval date is needed.

Edition of a Book other than the First (p. 321)

Use these abbreviations as necessary:

Second edition = 2nd ed.

Third edition = 3rd ed.

Fourth edition = 4th ed.

Revised edition = Rev. ed.

General Format

In-Text Citation (Paraphrase):

(Author Surname, Year)

In-Text Citation (Quotation):

(Author Surname, Year, page number)

References:

Author Surname, First Initial. Second Initial. (Year). Book title: Subtitle (edition). Publisher.

Example

In-Text Citation (Paraphrase):

(Harris, 2001)

In-Text Citation (Quotation):

(Harris, 2001, p. 50)

References:

Harris, L. A. (2001). Canadian copyright law (3rd ed.). McGraw Hill Ryerson. 

Learn More

The Online Writing Lab at Purdue University offers an online resource which can be used in some cases.  However, it does not include everything required for citing sources in one place.

The APA citation style does not cover Canadian government sources, and has only a limited section on American government resources.

Please refer to the staff at the Library Reference Desk for clarification when citing Canadian government sources.