Reference Machine - Books

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On this page: How to make a bibliographic reference for a book.

Related pages: Referencing, Reference Machines for in-text citation, an article in a journal, an edited book, a newspaper or magazine article an Internet reference, an online image, or music.

Instructions: Read the following example, then fill in the form below to make a reference using the APA style, used by the English Language Centre.

Example:

Murphy, R. (1992). English grammar in use. Cambridge University Press.

Fill in the boxes, and then press the 'Create Reference' button:

1.	Main author's family name: (Help)	->	e.g. Wong
2.	Main author's other-name initials: (Help)		e.g. W.M. e.g. John = J
	If there is a second author, fill in points 3. and 4. If there is only one author, go on to number 11.
3.	Second author's family name: (Help)		e.g. Chan
4.	Second author's other-name initials: (Help)		e.g. W.M.
	If there is a third author, fill in points 5. and 6. If there are only two authors, go on to number 11.
5.	Third author's family name: (Help)		e.g. Fu
6.	Third author's other-name initials: (Help)		e.g. W.M.
..
	If there is a fourth author, fill in points 7. and 8. If there is only three authors, go on to number 11.
7.	Fourth author's family name: (Help)		e.g. Chan
8.	Fourth author's other-name initials: (Help)		e.g. W.M.
	If there is a fifth author, fill in points 9. and 10. If there are only four authors, go on to number 11.
9.	Fifth author's family name: (Help)		e.g. Fu
10.	Fifth author's other-name initials: (Help)		e.g. W.M.
	If there are more than 5 authors, give the surnames and initials for up to 20 authors. Include the first 19 authors’ names, then insert “…” and add the last author’s name. This is not part of this program as it is rare to have so many authors.
11	Year of publication:		e.g.
12.	Title (Capital letter for the first letter of the first word. If there is a sub-title, use a capital letter for the first letter of the first word.):		e.g. Modern linguistics: Surveying the literature
13.	Name of the publishing company:		e.g. Oxford University Press Note: In APA 7th edition, the city of publication is no longer used.

Click this button for your reference:

Click this button to empty all the boxes and start again:

Last updated: Tuesday, 18 August 2020

Author's Family Name Help:

If you can't find an author's name, for example in a newspaper or magazine, use the title of the newspaper or magazine.

Do not use 'et al.' in bibliographies: quote the names of all the authors and/or editors.

If you don't know which name is the family name and which are the other names:

Look at the pages in the front of the book for the Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data. If you see the author's name with a comma after the first word, then that first word is the author's family name.
Use the library catalogue to search for the title of the book, then look for the author's name.
Search for the book at Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble, find the book by its title, then look for the author's family name.
Check the list of other names.
If you can't find the information in the sources above, use all of the name.

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Author's Initials Help

The author's initials are the first letters of each of the author's other names. For example, if the author is Chan Wai Man, then the initials are W. M.

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