PERRLA/Guides/APA 7/Book

How to Cite a Book in APA 7

An APA 7 book reference lists the author, the year in parentheses, the book title in italics and sentence case, the edition in parentheses when there is one, the publisher, and the DOI as a link when the book has one. The in-text citation is the author's last name and the year: (Benner, 1984). Print books and e-books use the same format.

The format

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of the book: Subtitle of the book (2nd ed.). Publisher. https://doi.org/xxxx

PERRLA APA Experts · Updated October 21, 2026
Checked against the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition. Every example is formatted by PERRLA's reference engine.

First, the easy way: PERRLA

Type the book's ISBN, its DOI, or its title into PERRLA's reference search. PERRLA finds the book and fills in the authors, the year, the title in sentence case, the edition, the publisher, and the DOI when there is one. Give the result a quick look against the book's copyright page before you add it, because book databases don't always agree on an author's middle initial or the edition. Then PERRLA puts the finished reference on your references page in order, hanging indent and all.

Adding one by hand? Choose Book, then Book, e-book, or audiobook, then All or part of a book. Fill in what's on the title page and copyright page. If you type the title the way the cover capitalizes it, PERRLA offers to fix it for you with Fix it for me. For an organization, set the contributor's role to Group Author (Organization). PERRLA handles the italics, the edition format, and the punctuation, and it leaves the publisher out when it matches the author.

Look up
Paste an ISBN, get the reference

9781975110642

Polit, D. F., & Beck, C. T. (2021). Nursing research: Generating and assessing evidence for nursing practice (11th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.

Not using PERRLA yet? Here is how to build the same reference by hand.

The parts of the reference

1. Author

Start with each author's last name, a comma, and their initials. Separate the authors with commas, and put an ampersand (&) before the last one. List up to 20 authors; with 21 or more, list the first 19, an ellipsis (…), and the final author.

Polit, D. F., & Beck, C. T.

When an organization wrote the book and no person is credited, the organization is the author. Spell out its full name in the reference, even if you abbreviate it in your paper: American Psychological Association. New to book references? Our APA 101 lesson, Formatting a Book Reference, walks through the four parts from the start.

2. Year

Put the year in parentheses, followed by a period. Use the copyright year printed on the book's copyright page, even when the book went on sale earlier. Textbooks often go on sale months before the year printed inside them.

(2021).

Books take the year only, never a month or day. No year anywhere? Write (n.d.).

3. Title

Write the title in italics and in sentence case: capitalize the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns. Covers almost always print titles in title case, so you'll usually need to lower-case most of the words.

Nursing research: Generating and assessing evidence for nursing practice

Proper nouns keep their capitals inside a title: Publication manual of the American Psychological Association.

4. Edition

If the book has an edition other than the first, put it in parentheses right after the title, not in italics, with a period after the closing parenthesis. Use a numeral and the abbreviation ed.

Nursing research: Generating and assessing evidence for nursing practice (11th ed.).

Named editions follow the same pattern: (Rev. ed.) or (5th ed., text rev.). A first edition gets no edition note at all.

5. Publisher

Give the publisher's name as the book shows it, minus business words like Inc., Co., or Ltd. APA 7 dropped the city and state, so don't write New York, NY: in front of it.

Wolters Kluwer.

Two publishers on the copyright page? List both, in the order shown, with a semicolon between them.

When the author and the publisher are the same organization, leave the publisher out so the name doesn't appear twice. The reference goes straight from the title (or edition) to the DOI.

6. DOI or URL

If the book has a DOI, end with it written as a link. Include the DOI whether you read the book in print or online. Don't put a period after it.

https://doi.org/10.17226/25982

Most print textbooks have no DOI. In that case the reference ends with the publisher. An e-book with no DOI but a free, stable web address, like an OpenStax textbook, ends with that URL instead. Don't add an Amazon link, a library catalog link, or the name of the database where you found the e-book.

Examples

A book with two authors and an edition

Polit and Beck's nursing research text, a staple of BSN and graduate research courses. The 11th edition carries a 2021 date, so 2021 goes in the reference. Both authors appear in every in-text citation.

  • Parenthetical citation(Polit & Beck, 2021, p. 52)
  • Narrative citationPolit and Beck (2021, p. 52)

A book with one author and no DOI

Patricia Benner's book on how nurses grow from novice to expert, published in 1984. It has no DOI, so the reference ends with the publisher.

  • Parenthetical citation(Benner, 1984, p. 13)
  • Narrative citationBenner (1984, p. 13)

A book by an organization, with a DOI

The National Academies' report on the future of nursing, published as a book by the National Academies Press. The organization is the author, the press is the publisher, and the book has a DOI.

  • Parenthetical citation(National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2021)
  • Narrative citationNational Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2021)

When the author and the publisher are the same

The APA's own Publication Manual. The American Psychological Association wrote it and published it, so its name appears once, as the author. The edition goes after the title, and the reference ends with the DOI.

  • Parenthetical citation(American Psychological Association, 2020)
  • Narrative citationAmerican Psychological Association (2020)

In-text citations

An APA 7 in-text citation for a book gives the author's last name and the year. Add a page number when you quote, or when you point to one specific passage.

  • One author: (Benner, 1984) or Benner (1984)
  • Two authors: both names every time, joined by & inside parentheses and by and in your sentence: (Polit & Beck, 2021) or Polit and Beck (2021)
  • Three or more authors: the first author and et al., starting with the first citation: (Bowen et al., 2024)
  • A group author: the full name: (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2021). If the group has a well-known abbreviation, or you'll cite it three or more times, you can define the abbreviation the first time, (Institute of Medicine [IOM], 2001), and use (IOM, 2001) after that.
  • A quote: add the page: (Polit & Beck, 2021, p. 52). For a range, use pp. and an en dash: (Benner, 1984, pp. 13–14).

A narrative citation puts the author in your sentence and the year in parentheses right after the name: Benner (1984) described five stages of clinical skill. When you quote, the page goes after the quotation.

Common mistakes

  • Polit, D. F., & Beck, C. T. (2021). Nursing Research: Generating and Assessing Evidence for Nursing Practice (11th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.Polit, D. F., & Beck, C. T. (2021). Nursing research: Generating and assessing evidence for nursing practice (11th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.Book titles take sentence case in APA 7, even though the cover uses title case. Capitalize the first word, the first word after the colon, and proper nouns only.
  • Nursing research: Generating and assessing evidence for nursing practice (11th ed.).Nursing research: Generating and assessing evidence for nursing practice (11th ed.).The edition is not part of the title, so it stays out of the italics. The period goes after the closing parenthesis.
  • Benner, P. (1984). From novice to expert: Excellence and power in clinical nursing practice. Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley.Benner, P. (1984). From novice to expert: Excellence and power in clinical nursing practice. Addison-Wesley.The publisher's city and state were an APA 6 rule. APA 7 gives the publisher's name only.
  • American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). American Psychological Association.American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000When the author and the publisher are the same, the name appears only once, as the author. And when a book has a DOI, it belongs at the end.
  • (Polit & Beck, 2020)(Polit & Beck, 2021)Use the copyright year printed inside the book, not the date a store or a database says it went on sale.

Quick checklist

  • Every author, up to 20, with an ampersand before the last
  • The copyright year only, in parentheses
  • Title in italics and sentence case
  • Edition in plain parentheses after the title, like (11th ed.)
  • Publisher's name, with no city or state, left out when it matches the author
  • DOI as a https://doi.org/ link when the book has one, with no period after it

Questions students ask

Do I include the publisher's location in APA 7?

No. APA 7 dropped the city and state from book references. Give the publisher's name only, like Elsevier or Wolters Kluwer.

What if a book has no DOI?

End the reference after the publisher. Most print textbooks don't have a DOI, and that's fine. Don't add a link to Amazon, a bookstore, or a library catalog in its place.

Which year do I use if the book has several dates?

Use the copyright year on the copyright page, usually the back of the title page. If the book is a newer edition, use the year of the edition you read, not the year the first edition came out.

Do I need to say it was an e-book or Kindle book?

No. APA 7 cites e-books exactly like print books, with no mention of the format or the device. See our guide to citing an e-book or Kindle book for page numbers and locations.

How do I cite a book written by an organization?

Put the organization's full name where the author goes. If the organization also published the book, leave the publisher out. In your paper, you can define a well-known abbreviation the first time you cite it and use the abbreviation after that.

How do I cite one chapter of a book?

If one author or one team wrote the whole book, cite the whole book and give the page or chapter in your in-text citation. If each chapter has different authors and the book has editors, cite the chapter as a chapter in an edited book.

Rules checked against the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.), Sections 8.13, 8.17, 8.21, 9.8, 9.11, 9.14, 9.19, 9.29, 9.34–9.35, and 10.2, and the APA Style website's book and nursing reference examples. Example sources verified against Library of Congress catalog records, each book's DOI, and the publishers.

PERRLA builds the book reference from its ISBN or DOI, edition, sentence case, and all.

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