Skip to Main Content

JCU logoLibrary Guides

APA (7th Edition) Referencing Guide

Guide to APA citation style using the 7th Edition of the APA Style Manual.

Are you sure it is a book chapter?

Are you sure you should be citing a chapter of this book, and not the whole book? Check the page on Books and book chapters.

Standard chapter pattern

Chapter from a book:

Format

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date). Title of chapter: Subtitle. In A. Editor & B. Editor (Eds.), Title of book: Subtitle (edition*, pages of chapter). Publisher. DOI or URL (if electronic)

If there are no named editors (but the chapters are still individually authored), exclude that part of the pattern:

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date). Title of chapter: Subtitle. In Title of book: Subtitle (edition*, pages of chapter). Publisher. DOI or URL (if electronic)

*if not the first edition - do not include edition information for first editions.
Examples

Le Couteur, D., Kendig, H., Naganathan, V., & McLachlan, A. (2010). The ethics of prescribing medications to older people. In S. Koch, F. M. Gloth & R. Nay (Eds.), Medication management in older adults (pp. 29-42). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-457-9_3

Martin, A. (2006). Literacies for the digital age. In A. Martin & D. Madigan (Eds.), Digital literacies for learning (pp. 3-25). Facet.

Pagliano, P. (2018). Inclusive practices. In A. Ashman (Ed.), Education for inclusion and diversity (6th ed., pp. 235-267). Pearson Australia.

Rolf, F., & Burston, A. (2020). Safety. In A. Berman, G. Frandsen, S. Snyder, T. Levett-Jones, A. Burston, T. Dwyer, M. Hales, N. Harvey, T. Langtree, L. Moxham, F. Rolf, K. Reid-Searl  & D. Stanley (Eds.), Kozier and Erb’s fundamentals of nursing (5th Australian ed., pp. 2695-2833). Pearson.

 

Note:

  • You only include an edition number if it is not the first edition. If you have a multi-volume work, the volume number goes in the same brackets as the edition number: (3rd ed., Vol. 4, pp. 12-13).
  • Include a DOI if available. Do not include a URL or database information for works from academic research databases - such as ProQuest or Medline - or books that are platform specific, such as Kindle or Kobo. Include a URL for eBooks from other websites. 
  • Are you trying to cite a section of a custom textbook? Custom textbooks are works that have been compiled for a particular course or cohort, and the chapters may have originally come from a variety of sources. Please see the section on Custom Textbooks under Class Handouts and Lectures.

Special examples

Here are some special examples of book chapters that have been a bit tricky:

Harding, M. R. (Writer), & Cashin, A. (Adaptor). (2015). The importance of nursing. In D. Brown, H. Edwards, L. Seaton, & T. Buckley (Eds.), Lewis's medical-surgical nursing: Assessment and management of clinical problems (4th ed., Australian and New Zealand ed., pp. 2-20). Elsevier Australia.

In text: (Harding & Cashin, 2015).

We acknowledge the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first inhabitants of the nation and acknowledge Traditional Owners of the lands where our staff and students, live, learn and work.Acknowledgement of Country

Creative Commons Licence
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International License. Content from this Guide should be attributed to James Cook University Library. This does not apply to images, third party material (seek permission from the original owner) or any logos or insignia belonging to JCU or other bodies, which remain All Rights Reserved.

.