How do you cite a book with no author in APA?

Move the title to the author position. Use italics for the title, then list the year, publisher, and any DOI or URL. In the in-text citation, use a shortened version of the title in italics and the year: (Merriam-Webster, 2023). If the title is long, shorten it to the first few meaningful words, keeping the italics.

How do you cite an ebook in APA 7th edition?

Cite an ebook the same way as a print book, then add a DOI at the end if one exists. If there is no DOI but the book has a stable URL, add that instead. If you read the book through a library database with no stable URL, omit the database name entirely. APA 7th edition removed most database names from references unless the source is only in that database.

How do you format in-text citations for a book in APA?

Use the author surname and year in parentheses: (Smith, 2021). For a direct quote or specific idea tied to a page, add the page number: (Smith, 2021, p. 45). For a range, use pp.: (Smith, 2021, pp. 45-46). If the author appears in the sentence, put only the year in parentheses: Smith (2021) argued that...

How do you cite a book with three or more authors in APA?

In the reference list, list all authors up to 20 by surname and initials, separated by commas, with an ampersand before the last name. In the in-text citation, use only the first author followed by et al. and the year from the first citation: (Jones et al., 2019). APA 7th edition removed the earlier rule requiring the full author list for three to five authors on first citation.

Do you include the city of publication for books in APA 7th edition?

No. APA 7th edition dropped the city of publication from book references. You need only the publisher name. Earlier editions required the city and state (or country for international publishers), so check the edition your institution requires. A 6th-edition reference for a book would look different at the end: New York, NY: Publisher versus just Publisher in 7th edition.

Writing Referencing

How to Cite a Book in APA 7th Edition

Q: What does an APA 7th edition book reference look like?

The format is: Author, A. A. (Year). Title of book in sentence case: Subtitle if any (Edition, if not first ed.). Publisher. For example: Brown, C. S. (2018). Refusing racism: White allies and the struggle for civil rights. Teachers College Press. Only the book title is italicized; publisher information follows after the edition note.

Q: Do you italicize the book title in an APA reference?

Yes. In APA 7th edition, the book title and subtitle are italicized in the reference list. The title uses sentence case, meaning only the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns receive capital letters. Do not italicize the author names, the year, or the publisher. In the in-text citation, the title is not italicized because you use only the author surname and year.

Q: How do you cite a second or third edition of a book in APA?

Include the edition in parentheses immediately after the title, without italics: Title of book (2nd ed.). Publisher. For example: Creswell, J. W. (2018). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (5th ed.). Sage. If the book is a first edition, omit the edition note entirely. Only include it from the second edition onward.

By Jonas|8 July 2026|10 min read

Key Takeaways

APA 7th edition book citations follow this format: Author, A. A. (Year). Title in sentence case (Edition). Publisher. Add a DOI or URL at the end for ebooks.

Only the book title and subtitle are italicized. City of publication is omitted in 7th edition; publisher name alone is sufficient.

In-text citations use the author surname and year: (Smith, 2021). Add p. or pp. for direct quotes. For three or more authors, use et al. from the first citation.

For an edited book with no single author, list the editor with (Ed.) or (Eds.) after the name in the author position.

For a book with no author, move the italicized title to the author position and use a short title in the in-text citation.

An APA 7th edition book citation follows a fixed field order: author, year, title, edition, publisher. Get that sequence right and the rest resolves into detail. What trips most students is not the structure but the specifics: sentence-case titles, no city of publication, the exact placement of edition information, and how in-text citations change when a book has six authors. The APA Style official reference examples page at apastyle.apa.org covers every source type, and this guide walks the book format end to end with copy-ready examples.

What Is the APA 7th Edition Format for a Book?

The APA 7th edition format for a print book reference is: Author, A. A. (Year). Title of book in sentence case: Subtitle if any (Edition, if not first ed.). Publisher. For an ebook, append a DOI or URL after the publisher. That is the complete structure, and every field carries specific formatting rules.

Field-by-Field Breakdown

Field	What to Include	Example
Author(s)	Surname, then initials only. Up to 20 authors listed in full. Separate with commas; ampersand before last name.	Brown, C. S., & Smith, J. T.
Year	Year of publication in parentheses, followed by a period.	(2021).
Title	Full title and subtitle. Sentence case. Italicized. Separated by a colon and space.	Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches
Edition	Only from 2nd edition onward. In parentheses, not italicized, after the title.	(4th ed.)
Publisher	Publisher name only. No city, no state, no country. Omit Ltd, Inc., Publishers, Co.	Sage.
DOI / URL	For ebooks: add DOI as a hyperlink. If no DOI, add a stable URL. Omit database names.	https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxxx

FieldAuthor(s)

What to IncludeSurname, then initials only. Up to 20 authors listed in full. Separate with commas; ampersand before last name.

ExampleBrown, C. S., & Smith, J. T.

FieldYear

What to IncludeYear of publication in parentheses, followed by a period.

Example(2021).

FieldTitle

What to IncludeFull title and subtitle. Sentence case. Italicized. Separated by a colon and space.

ExampleQualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches

FieldEdition

What to IncludeOnly from 2nd edition onward. In parentheses, not italicized, after the title.

Example(4th ed.)

FieldPublisher

What to IncludePublisher name only. No city, no state, no country. Omit Ltd, Inc., Publishers, Co.

ExampleSage.

FieldDOI / URL

What to IncludeFor ebooks: add DOI as a hyperlink. If no DOI, add a stable URL. Omit database names.

Examplehttps://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxxx

APA 7th edition book reference fields in order. City of publication was removed entirely in the 7th edition.

Italics, Capitalization, and Punctuation Rules

Three formatting rules catch students most often. First, only the book title (and subtitle) goes in italics; author names, year, edition note, and publisher do not. Second, the title uses sentence case, not title case. That means only the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns receive capital letters. A book called “Refusing Racism: White Allies and the Struggle for Civil Rights” becomes Refusing racism: White allies and the struggle for civil rights. Third, 7th edition dropped the city of publication entirely. Do not write “New York, NY:” before the publisher name.

Each color corresponds to one field. The title sits in italicized sentence case; the edition note follows in plain parentheses; city of publication does not appear at all.

How Do You Write an In-Text Citation for a Book?

The APA in-text citation for a book uses the author surname and year: (Brown, 2021). For a direct quote or a specific argument tied to a page, add the page number: (Brown, 2021, p. 45). The in-text citation never includes the full title, initials, or publisher. Those details live exclusively in the reference list.

The Author-Date Format

APA uses an author-date system, not a numbered or footnote system. That means every in-text citation pairs an author surname with a year. Place the citation in parentheses at the end of the sentence before the period, or integrate it into the sentence. Both forms are correct:

Paraphrase at sentence end: Research suggests that qualitative methods capture participant experience more fully (Creswell, 2018).
Author named in sentence: Creswell (2018) argued that qualitative methods capture participant experience more fully.

When the author appears in the sentence, put only the year in parentheses immediately after the name. Do not repeat the name inside the parentheses.

When to Include Page Numbers

Page numbers in in-text citations are required for direct quotes and recommended for specific passages or data you want the reader to verify. For a single page, use p. 45. For a range, use pp. 45-47. For a paraphrase of a general idea spread across the book, page numbers are optional. The APA Style author-date page confirms that page numbers are encouraged even for paraphrases when it would help readers locate the passage.

Direct Quote Rule

Any time you copy an author's exact words, a page number is mandatory: (Brown, 2021, p. 14). Omitting it is a common referencing error that your institution may treat as poor practice even when the in-text citation is otherwise correct.

Multiple Authors in the In-Text Citation

Two authors: cite both surnames every time, joined by an ampersand inside parentheses or “and” in the sentence: (Smith & Jones, 2020) or Smith and Jones (2020) found that...

Three or more authors: use only the first author's surname followed by et al. from the first citation onward: (Jones et al., 2019). APA 7th edition removed the older rule that required the full author list for three to five authors on the first citation. You start with et al. immediately.

APA 7th edition uses et al. for three or more authors from the first in-text citation. The reference list still includes all names up to 20.

Correctly Formatted APA Book Citation Examples

The following examples use the APA Style official book reference examples as the verification source. Copy the structure exactly; the content fields change but the formatting pattern stays fixed.

Standard Single-Author Book

Reference list:

Reference list entry

Brown, C. S. (2018). Refusing racism: White allies and the struggle for civil rights. Teachers College Press.

In-text citations:

Paraphrase: (Brown, 2018)
Direct quote: (Brown, 2018, p. 52)
Author in sentence: Brown (2018) argued that...

Book With Two or More Authors

Reference list (two authors):

Reference list entry

Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (5th ed.). Sage.

In-text: (Creswell & Creswell, 2018) or Creswell and Creswell (2018)

Reference list (three authors):

Reference list entry

Harris, A. L., Hathorn, C., & Idris, L. (2022). Foundations of educational psychology. Wiley.

In-text from first citation: (Harris et al., 2022)

Edited Book

For an edited book where no single author wrote the whole volume, list the editor(s) in the author position and add (Ed.) for one editor or (Eds.) for multiple, in parentheses after the name(s), followed by a period before the year.

Reference list entry

Bernstein, D. A. (Ed.). (2011). Educator's guide to teaching introductory psychology. Wiley-Blackwell.

In-text: (Bernstein, 2011)

Edited book versus book chapter

When you cite the edited book as a whole, use the editor format above. When you cite a specific chapter written by a contributor, the format changes: the chapter author goes in the author position and the editors appear mid-reference after “In”. See the guide to citing a book chapter in APA for the full structure.

Ebook With a DOI or URL

Cite an ebook identically to a print book, then add the DOI or URL at the end. A DOI takes priority over a URL. If neither exists (e.g., the book sits in a library database), omit the location entirely. APA's DOI and URL guidance confirms that database names are omitted unless the content is only available in that database and has no public URL.

Reference list entry (ebook with DOI)

Freire, P. (2018). Pedagogy of the oppressed (M. B. Ramos, Trans.; 50th anniversary ed.). Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190672942.001.0001

In-text: (Freire, 2018)

APA 7th edition prefers a DOI over a URL, and a URL over nothing. A library database name is never included unless the content is exclusive to that database.

Common Edge Cases

Three situations produce consistent errors in book citations. Each has a clear rule in the APA Publication Manual, 7th edition.

No Author Listed

Move the italicized title to the author position, followed by the year. In the in-text citation, use a short version of the title in italics and the year. Do not write “Anonymous” unless the work explicitly names the author as Anonymous.

Reference list entry (no author)

Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary (12th ed.). (2023). Merriam-Webster.

In-text: (Merriam-Webster's, 2023)

Specific Edition or Republished Work

Include the edition note in parentheses immediately after the title, with no italics. For a republished or translated work, include the translator's name after the title in parentheses before the edition note, and add the original publication year at the end if known.

Republished/translated work

Freire, P. (2018). Pedagogy of the oppressed (M. B. Ramos, Trans.; 50th anniversary ed.). Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190672942.001.0001 (Original work published 1968)

In-text: (Freire, 1968/2018). Use both dates when citing a republished work.

Group or Corporate Author

When a government body, organization, or institution authored the book, use the full group name in the author position. In the in-text citation, spell the name out in full on the first use. If the name is long and has a standard abbreviation, you may introduce the abbreviation in brackets and then use it for subsequent citations: (World Health Organization [WHO], 2021) then (WHO, 2021).

Group author reference

World Health Organization. (2021). Global status report on road safety 2021. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240023802

Four changes affect book references between editions. If your institution specifies 6th edition, note especially that city of publication returns and et al. rules differ for 3-5 authors.

Mixing 6th and 7th Edition Rules

The most common formatting error in mixed reading lists: including the city of publication in a 7th edition reference (a 6th edition habit). If your syllabus or institution requires 7th edition, drop the city entirely. If it requires 6th, keep it. When in doubt, check your institution's referencing guide or ask your tutor which edition applies.

APA Citation Generator

Build your APA 7th edition book reference automatically. Enter the author, year, title, edition, and publisher details to generate a correctly formatted citation.

Open Citation Generator

The Classeva citations hub covers all major source types including books, journal articles, websites, and more. For citing a journal article in APA, see the step-by-step journal article guide, and for citing a book chapter from an edited volume, see the book chapter citation guide.

Try the AI tutor free

Key Takeaways

The APA 7th edition book reference format is: Author, A. A. (Year). Title in sentence case (Edition). Publisher. Add a DOI or URL at the end for ebooks.
Only the book title and subtitle are italicized. The author, year, edition note, and publisher all appear in plain text.
Titles use sentence case: capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns. Every other word stays lowercase.
City of publication does not appear in 7th edition references. Publisher name alone is sufficient.
In-text citations use the author surname and year: (Smith, 2021). Add p. or pp. for direct quotes. Two authors use an ampersand: (Smith & Lee, 2020). Three or more authors use et al. from the first citation.
For an edited book, place (Ed.) or (Eds.) after the editor name(s) in the author position. For a book with no author, move the italicized title to the author position.
For republished or translated works, include both the original and new publication years in the in-text citation: (Freire, 1968/2018).