Formatting a Book Reference (APA 7)

Book references are one of the most common types of references students create when building references for the APA 7th Edition. 

Although most book references are fairly straight forward, there are multiple places where students can get tripped up. Most errors happen when sentence casing the book title and setting punctuation through the parts of the reference. 

This guide walks through each element of a book reference and ends with a complete example.

What this article covers

• The four main parts of a book reference

• Special cases for names and dates

• The final formatted example

The standard pattern for Book references

The basic book includes four parts: an author part, the date part, the title part, and the source part. Each part of the reference is separated by a period but may have it's own individual styling & punctuation as well.

Here's how the four parts are organized for a basic Book reference:

Author part. (Date part). Title part. Source part.

Tip: The APA 7 format requires you to create references based on their original format, not the format you read it in. In other words, if you read the book through a web-browser, you still cite it as a book – not a webpage.

1. Author part
   List the authors of the work, inverting the name so the last name comes first, followed by the first and middle name initials. Use periods after initials with a space between the intials for first and middle names. Add suffixes at the end of the name after another comma (for example, Jr., III). Omit degrees and titles.
   Example: The author John Meldrum would be formatted as "Meldrum, J."

2. Date part
   For books, the date should be the most recent year of publication for the work. Place the year in parentheses, followed by a period: (2007). If no year is available for the work, use (n.d.).

3. Title part
   Italicize the full title. Use sentence case – capitalize only the first word of the title and subtitle, and any proper nouns. End with a period, not italic.
   Example: Sasquatch: Legend meets science.

4. Source part
   Provide the publisher name only. City and state are not required in APA 7. Keep words like Press or Books when part of the name; omit corporate suffixes such as Inc. or LLC.
   Example: Forge Books.

Full example

Last, F. (Publication Date). Title of the book. Publishers.

Meldrum, J. (2007). Sasquatch: Legend meets science. Forge Books.

FYI: When the author and publisher are the same, omit the publisher to avoid repetition.

Quick checklist

▢ Author inverted with initials and suffix rules
▢ Year in parentheses with period after
▢ Title italicized in sentence case, period not italic
▢ Publisher name only, no location
▢ Spacing and punctuation checked

With PERRLA

PERRLA can build a book reference from an ISBN. The form fills the fields, and the final entry appears on the References page with the correct italics, spacing, and hanging indent.

Download PERRLA's APA 7 Checklist

It's a lot to remember all the rules, and if you aren't letting PERRLA do the formatting for you, use our brief checklist for your next APA 7 paper. Click here to get your copy now!

Next Article: Formatting a Journal Article Reference

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Note for instructors & students: This article follows APA 7 student paper conventions.