13 Creating Reference List Citations: Books/Ebooks

Next, we will use the 4 W’s to look at creating reference citations for the various sources evaluated in the previous chapters. Pay close attention to the punctuation and font emphasis (italic, underline) used.

Step 1: Find the 4 Ws

The 4 Ws for the book (there are four slides) 

Step 2: Arrange the 4 Ws in the correct order and with the correct formatting.

The citation for the book (click image to see it bigger)

The example above is an eBook accessed through a library database with no DOI.

• Author: is the book’s individual author.
  • As always, use only initials for all given names.
• Date: the copyright date of the book, found on the copyright page (©2011).
  • This is the guideline for all books and eBooks. The release date of a book is not used.
• Title: is in sentence-case and italics as it is a stand alone work
  • If a title has a subtitle, it is separated by a colon (:) with the first word of the subtitle in upper-case.
• Source location: is the book’s publisher (and for ebooks also the DOI or URL if available)
  • If the ebook is in a library database and has no DOI, treat the ebook like a print book and finish the citation with the book publisher; do not include the URL (unless your instructor asks you to do so)

Now try it yourself! 

The Library’s APA Online Guide is a great resource to have on hand for creating reference citations.

_{Image attribution: “[Colour coded and labelled image for a book/ebook“ by University of Alberta Library’s APA Style Citation Tutorial is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 International.}