Yale Center for Teaching and Learning

Citing Books

Citing Books - General Information

How to Cite Books


Books vs. Articles

You may be surprised to learn that it’s not always easy to tell whether your source is a book. In an everyday sense, we know a book when we see it—it’s a bound, printed document that’s thicker and heavier than a magazine. But in a research context, there’s an important subcategory of book called an anthology. An anthology is a collection of articles by different authors. Most anthologies list on the title page the name of an editor who selected the articles (some anthologies have multiple editors). Anthologies can be especially useful for researching a topic, because they often collect a range of approaches to the same issue, frequently by reprinting articles from scholarly journals. (See Scholarly vs. Popular Sources for more discussion of journals.) But when using an article from an anthology, it’s very important to list your entry by the author and title of the article, and not by the editor of the book. For more information, see Article in a Book.

 


Books

 

MLA: 
Thernstrom, Melanie. Halfway Heaven: Diary of a Harvard Murder. New York: Doubleday, 1997. Print.
[author, by last name.] [title.] [city of publication: publisher, year. medium.]

 

APA:
Thernstrom, M. (1997). Halfway heaven: Diary of a Harvard murder. New York, NY: Doubleday.
[author, by last name, initial.] [(year).] [title.] [city of publication, state using the two letter postal abbreviation without periods: publisher.]

 

Chicago: 
1. Thernstrom, Halfway Heaven, 83.
[fn. #.] [author last name, shortened title, page quoted.]
[Shortened Chicago reference; see More Notes on Chicago Style for more information.]

Note: Thernstrom’s book was published by the Doubleday Publishing Group, but the convention is to shorten the name by eliminating common words that refer to publishers, such as “Book,” “Company,” or “Press.”

Also note: If the book contains chapters written by different authors, it may be an anthology, and so should be cited differently. See Books vs. Articles for more information.

Older Works

If the book you’re citing is being republished many years after it first appeared, you may want to include the original publication date to your listing, in addition to the new publication. This additional information lets the reader know more about the intellectual context of your source. The older your text, the more helpful it is to include this information. (If the book you’re using is a second or later edition, just add an abbreviation after the title, for instance, 2nd ed.) So in the example below, the particular edition of The Tempest being used was published in 1999; the writer has added “1623” to remind readers of the play’s first publication date.

 

MLA:
Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. 1623. Ed. Peter Holland. New York: Penguin, 1999. Print.
[author, by last name.] [title.] [“Ed.” editor, by first name.] [city of publication: publisher, year. medium.]

 

APA:
Shakespeare, W. (1999). The tempest. P. Holland (Ed.). (Original work published 1623.)
[author last name, initial.] [(year).] [title.] [editor, by initial (“Ed.”).] [city of publication, state using the two letter postal abbreviation without periods: publisher.]
 

Chicago:
2. Shakespeare, Tempest, 3.2.21.
[fn. #.] [author last name, shortened title, act.scene.line for quoting plays.]
[Shortened Chicago reference; see More Notes on Chicago Style for more information.]

 


Books with Editors or Translators

MLA:
Wertsch, James, ed. The Concept of Activity in Soviet Psychology. Armonk: Sharpe, 1981. Print.
[editor, by last name, “ed.”] [title.] [city of publication: publisher, year. medium.]

APA:
Wertsch, J. (Ed.). (1981). The concept of activity in Soviet psychology. Armonk, NY: Sharpe.
[editor last name, initial. (“Ed.”).] [(year).] [title.] [city of publication, state using the two letter postal abbreviation without periods: publisher.]

Chicago:
3. Wertsch, Concept of Activity, 7.
[fn. #.] [editor last name, shortened title, page quoted.]
[Shortened Chicago reference; see More Notes on Chicago Style for more information.]

There are two different kinds of books that have an editor: anthologies and older works.

Anthologies

As discussed in Books vs. Articles, an anthology is a collection of articles by different authors; most anthologies list on the title page the name of the editor who selected the articles (some anthologies have multiple editors). When listing the anthology in your Works Cited or References, list by the editor’s name, followed by a comma, then add “ed.” (for “editor”). The example above (Wertsch) is an anthology.

Older Works

In the case of older works, sometimes an editor has worked on the text even though it has a single primary author. For instance, many publications of Shakespeare’s plays credit an editor who made decisions about which previous copies to trust and which words need additional explanation. In those cases, if the material you’re quoting is from the main text, you list by the original author’s name, followed by the title, then add “Ed.” (for “edited by”) and the editor’s name. As with other books, you would list the publication year for the book you’re using at the end of the listing. But you may also want to include the original publication date just after the title, to give readers a little more context for your citation. So if you were quoting from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, you’d cite it as below.

MLA:
Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. 1604. Ed. Peter Holland. New York: Penguin, 1999. Print.
[author, by last name.] [title.] [“Ed.” editor, by first name.] [city of publication: publisher, year. medium.]

APA:
Shakespeare, W. (1999). The tempest.P. Holland (Ed.). New York, NY: Penguin. (Original work published 1604.)
[author last name, initial.] [(year).] [title.] [editor, by initial (“Ed.”).] [city of publication, state using the two letter postal abbreviation without periods: publisher.]
 

Chicago:
4. Shakespeare, Tempest, 3.2.21.
[fn. #.] [author last name, shortened title, act.scene.line for quoting plays.]
[Shortened Chicago reference; see More Notes on Chicago Style for more information.]

Note: In the Bibliography, Chicago style spells out “edited by” or “translated by” where relevant.

Also note: If the material you’re using is not from the main text, you may want to list by the editor. For instance, if you’re quoting in your essay something Peter Holland says about The Tempest, you might list by Holland’s name. See Prefaces, Forewords, & Introductions for more information.

Translators

For translated works, list by the name of the original author. After the title, add “Trans.” (for “translated by”) and the translator’s name, followed by a period.

MLA:
Derrida, Jacques. Dissemination. Trans. Barbara Johnson. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1981. Print.
[author, by last name.] [title.] [“Trans.” translator, by first name.] [city of publication: publisher, year. Medium.]

APA:
Derrida, J. (1981). Dissemination. (B. Johnson, Trans.). Chicago, IL: U of Chicago P.
[author last name, initial.] [(year).] [title.] [(translator, by initial, “Trans.”).] [city of publication, state using the two letter postal abbreviation without periods: publisher.]

Chicago:
5. Derrida, Dissemination, 91.
[fn. #.] [author last name, shortened title, page quoted.]
[Shortened Chicago reference; see More Notes on Chicago Style for more information.]

Note: In the Bibliography, Chicago style spells out “edited by” or “translated by” where relevant.


Prefaces, Forewords, & Introductions

MLA: 
Hunter, J. Paul. Introduction. Frankenstein. By Mary Shelley. New York: Norton, 1996. vii-xii. Print.
[author of introduction, by last name.] [section name.] [title.] [By author of main work.] [city of publication: publisher, year.] [page numbers.] [medium.]

APA:
Hunter, J. P. (1996). Introduction. In M. Shelley, Frankenstein (pp. vii-xii). New York, NY: Norton.
[author last name, initial] [(year).] [section name.] [In author of main work,] [title (“pp.” page numbers).] [city of publication, state using the two letter postal abbreviation without periods: publisher.]

Chicago:
6. Hunter, “Introduction to Frankenstein,” vii-xii.
[fn. #.] [author last name, “shortened title,” pages quoted.]
[Shortened Chicago reference; see More Notes on Chicago Style for more information.]

Sometimes the material you cite will not be from the main body of the book, but from a preface, foreword, or introduction written by a different author. The principle is to list the source by the name of the writer whose work you’re citing. For instance, when quoting from a preface, list by the preface’s author, followed by the word “Preface.” Then list the book title, the book’s author, and the rest of the publication information.

Note: When citing a book section (such as a preface or introduction) that is not by the primary author, give the first and last page numbers for the section at the end of your listing (in this example “vii-xii”).