Other Sources · Module A

Books

Books are secondary or tertiary sources that provide deep, comprehensive overviews of a specific topic. They are highly stable and undergo rigorous editing before publication. This module covers printed textbooks, digital monographs (single-author books), edited volumes (collections where each chapter has a different author), and historical reference volumes.

Video: Citing Books

Instructor video coming soon

Examples in Your Field

Field	Books you might cite
Human Development & Family Studies	Handbook of Child Psychology and Developmental Science (Wiley); The Lifespan: Human Development for Helping Professionals (Pearson)
Education	Visible Learning for Teachers by John Hattie (Routledge); Taxonomy of Educational Objectives by Benjamin Bloom (Longman)
Computer Science & Design	The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman (Basic Books); Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug (New Riders)

Where the Information Lives

A book's citation information sits on two pages, right at the front:

Where	What you'll find
Title page	Full title and subtitle, author(s) or editor(s), publisher
Copyright page (the back of the title page)	Copyright year (use the most recent © year), edition number, and sometimes a DOI

Never cite from the cover. Covers abbreviate titles and drop subtitles. And don't use the printing history ("Third printing, 2019"): a printing is not an edition, and the year comes from the © line.

Explore Two Samples

Click each dashed-underlined part in both samples to see what it becomes in your reference. Find all 10.

Found: 0 / 10

Sample 1: A whole book (the title page and copyright page)

Title page

✅ Title and subtitle. Both go in the reference, italicized, in sentence case: The whole-brain child: 12 revolutionary strategies to nurture your child's developing mind. The title page has the full version; covers often shorten it.

✅ Authors. Drop the credentials (M.D., Ph.D. never appear in APA references) and invert: Siegel, D. J., & Bryson, T. P.

✅ Publisher. The last element of a book reference: Delacorte Press. Drop the city; APA 7 no longer uses locations. (Note the contrast with journal articles, where publishers never appear at all.)

✅ Copyright year. The © line gives your citation year: (2011). If several © years are listed for different editions, use the most recent one for the edition you're holding.

⚠️ Printing history: a trap! A printing is a reprint run, not a new edition. This book is still cited as (2011), not 2019. Only a true new edition ("2nd ed.") changes the reference.

⚠️ ISBN: not citation info. The ISBN is a retail and library identifier. It never appears in an APA reference.

Sample 2: A chapter in an edited volume (the chapter's first page)

Chapter 5

Attachment research has long centered the parent–child dyad, yet in many cultures the grandparent... [chapter continues]

✅ The book and its editors. The running header names the whole volume. In the reference these come after "In," with the editors' initials before their surnames: In R. Fields & J. Tran (Eds.), Family systems across cultures. The book title gets the italics, not the chapter title.

✅ The first page. Note where the chapter starts and ends; the full range goes in parentheses after the book title: (pp. 87–104). Chapters are the one book reference that includes page numbers.

✅ Chapter title. Plain, sentence case, no italics: Grandparents as attachment figures. Compare Sample 1, where a whole book's title is italicized.

✅ Chapter author. The reference starts with the chapter's author, never the editors: Okonkwo, A. (2020). Full reference: Okonkwo, A. (2020). Grandparents as attachment figures. In R. Fields & J. Tran (Eds.), Family systems across cultures (pp. 87–104). Sage.

Building the Reference

Whole book (including textbooks and monographs)

Pattern Author, A. A. (Year). Title of the book: Subtitle also in italics and sentence case (2nd ed.). Publisher.

Whole book Norman, D. (2013). The design of everyday things (Rev. ed.). Basic Books.

Notice what's different from a journal article: the book title is italicized (still sentence case), the publisher appears (no city, since APA 7 dropped locations), and there is no volume, issue, or page range. An edition number goes in parentheses after the title, not italicized.

A chapter in an edited volume

If each chapter has its own author, cite the chapter author. The editors and book title come after "In":

Chapter in an edited volume Okonkwo, A. (2020). Grandparents as attachment figures. In R. Fields & J. Tran (Eds.), Family systems across cultures (pp. 87–104). Sage.

⚠️ Two flips to notice: the chapter title is not italicized (the book title is), and the editors' initials come before their last names, the only place in APA where that happens. The chapter's page range goes in parentheses with "pp."

In-text

Books cite like any other source: (Norman, 2013) or Norman (2013). Direct quotes take the page number: (Norman, 2013, p. 44). For an edited-volume chapter, cite the chapter author, never the editors.

Check Yourself

Question 1

You're citing a book. Where do you find the year?

Question 2: Spot the Error

This book reference contains one APA 7 error. What is it?

Siegel, D. J., & Bryson, T. P. (2011). The whole-brain child: 12 revolutionary strategies to nurture your child's developing mind. New York, NY: Delacorte Press.

📕 Books