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Book Citation Generator

Books are usually the easiest source to cite correctly once you have the ISBN, because an ISBN points to one specific edition, not just one title. That distinction matters more than people expect: a 2nd edition and a 3rd edition of the same book can carry entirely different page numbers, and citing the wrong one sends a reader to content that doesn't match what you actually referenced.

Enter the ISBN below and MakeCitation looks up the confirmed title, author, edition, and publisher directly from OpenLibrary's records, instead of asking you to copy details off a title page by hand.

How the lookup works

Paste the ISBN, with or without dashes, and the generator confirms the exact edition on file and builds a citation from that confirmed record. If a book has no ISBN, which is common for older or self-published titles, manual entry covers it: enter the author, title, edition, publisher, and year yourself, and the formatting still comes out correct for whichever style you choose.

Textbooks work exactly the same way as any other book here. A separate citation generator for textbooks isn't really necessary, since a textbook is just a book where the edition number matters more than most, and courses assign specific editions on purpose, and citing the wrong one can point a reader to content that's shifted between printings.

Books, chapters, and edited volumes aren't the same reference

This is where most book-citation mistakes actually happen, and it's a structural problem, not a formatting one.

A single-author book gets cited as author, year, title, publisher. Straightforward, and the most common case by far.

An edited volume (a collection of chapters by different contributors, assembled by one or more editors) needs "(Ed.)" or "(Eds.)" next to the editor's name and a noticeably different structure than a single-author book.

One chapter from an edited volume is its own reference entirely: the chapter's author, the chapter title, the page range, and the book's editor and title. Citing the whole book when you only used one chapter sends a reader looking for your point across an entire volume instead of the four pages where it actually lives.

Mix these three up and the reference still looks plausible on the page, which is arguably worse than an obvious formatting slip: a wrong edition or a mislabeled editor doesn't announce itself the way a missing comma does.

What changes between styles

StylePublisher location required?Edition noted howEditor credited as
APANo (dropped in APA 7th edition)“(2nd ed.)” after the title“(Ed.)” / “(Eds.)”
MLANo“2nd ed.,” in the publication details“edited by [Name]”
ChicagoYes“2nd ed.” after the title“edited by [Name]”
HarvardVaries by institutional guide“2nd edn” after the title“(ed.)” / “(eds.)”
VancouverNot typicallyNoted after the titleListed in numbered form
TurabianYes, follows Chicago convention“2nd ed.” after the title“edited by [Name]”

Small differences on paper, but the kind a reader, or a marker, notices instantly, because they're inconsistent rather than simply wrong in isolation. One book cited with a publisher city and the next one without, sitting in the same reference list, reads as careless even when each entry might individually pass a spot check.

Live example · ISBN 9780143127550

APA 7th Edition

Ng, C. (2015). Everything I Never Told You. Penguin Books.

In-text: (Ng, 2015)

MLA 9th Edition

Ng, Celeste. Everything I Never Told You. Penguin Books, 2015.

In-text: (Ng)

Chicago

Ng, Celeste. 2015. Everything I Never Told You. Penguin Books.

In-text: (Ng 2015)

IEEE

[1] C. Ng, Everything I Never Told You. Penguin Books, 2015.

In-text: [1]

Harvard

Ng, C. (2015) Everything I Never Told You. Penguin Books.

In-text: (Ng, 2015)

Vancouver

1. Ng C. Everything I Never Told You. Penguin Books; 2015.

In-text: (1)

OSCOLA (4th edn)

Celeste Ng, Everything I Never Told You (Penguin Books 2015).

In-text: OSCOLA cites in footnotes, not inline — insert the reference below as a footnote.

ASA 7th Edition

Ng, Celeste. 2015. Everything I Never Told You. Penguin Books.

In-text: (Ng 2015)

Turabian (Author-Date)

Ng, Celeste. 2015. Everything I Never Told You. Penguin Books.

In-text: (Ng 2015)

CSE (9th edn)

1. Ng C. Everything I Never Told You. Penguin Books; 2015.

In-text: [1]

Common mistakes

Dropping the edition number. If a book has gone through multiple editions and the citation doesn't say which one, it technically points to all of them and none of them at once. This matters most for course textbooks, where the content, and sometimes the page numbers you're citing by, can differ meaningfully between the 4th and 5th printings.

Formatting an edited volume like a single-author book. Worth repeating on its own: check whether the name on the cover belongs to an author or an editor before the citation gets built, since the two need genuinely different structures, not just a swapped label.

Citing a chapter as if it were the whole book. If your actual source is one chapter, the reference should be built around that chapter specifically (its own author and title), not around the book it happens to appear in.

Using the ISBN for the wrong edition or format. Every edition, and often every format (hardcover, paperback, e-book), carries its own ISBN. Pasting one you found online without checking it matches your actual copy can quietly pull in the wrong edition's publication year or page count.

Textbooks, briefly

A dedicated citation generator for textbooks doesn't need to exist as a separate tool, but it's worth calling out on its own, since course textbooks get reassigned between editions more than almost any other book type. Citing the specific edition your course actually uses is often a stated requirement rather than a style preference. If a syllabus names an edition explicitly, the ISBN printed on the back cover is the fastest way to confirm you're citing the right one before you submit anything.

Frequently asked questions

Can I cite a book without an ISBN?

Yes, through manual entry. Older books, especially anything published before the ISBN system became standard, often won't have one. Enter the author, title, publisher, and year yourself and the citation still formats correctly.

How do I cite just one chapter, not the whole book?

Use the chapter's own author and title along with the page range, plus the book's editor and title as the container. This produces a different, more specific reference than citing the book as a whole.

Is there a separate tool for textbooks?

No, and there doesn't need to be. A textbook citation works exactly like any other book citation. The one thing worth double-checking is the edition, since textbooks change editions more often than most books do.

Try it

Enter your ISBN below to generate a book reference in all ten supported styles, including the in-text citation for each. If your source is one chapter from a larger edited collection, add the chapter title and page range manually after the lookup runs; the base record still comes from a confirmed source either way. Citing an article instead? The journal article citation generator works the same way, starting from a DOI. Citing a webpage? See the website citation generator.

✓Verified metadata from Crossref & OpenLibrary — we never fabricate sources.

Not sure what to paste? See how to cite a website, book, or journal article.

Preview

Reference

Morozov, D., & Jensen, O. (2024). Biochar application for heavy metal immobilization in contaminated industrial soils. Journal of Soil Remediation, 18, 100412. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsr.2023.100412

In-text

(Morozov & Jensen, 2024)