Citing and referencing: Books

A guide to the styles recommended by Monash schools and departments for students and researchers

Tips from the MLA Handbook

See the handbook p.111 (section 2.7) for details on formatting (e.g hanging indent and double line spacing). The examples in this Guide are based on more detailed information in:

MLA Handbook. 8th ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2016.

Books

Book with a single author

Format

Print: Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Year of Publication.

eBook: Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Year. Title of the database or website, doi.

Examples

Wright, Alexis. Carpentaria. Giramondo, 2006. ProQuest, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/monash/detail.action?docID=995840.

Lynch, Deidre. Loving Literature: A Cultural History. U of Chicago P, 2015.

Pascoe, Bruce. Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture. New ed., Scribe, 2018. ProQuest, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/monash/detail.action?docID=5581055. 

Zipes, Jack. The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre. Princeton UP, 2012. De Gruyter, doi:10.1515/9781400841820.

Galbraith, Robert (J. K. Rowling). The Cuckoo's Calling. Sphere, 2013.

Explanation

The publisher's name is usually written in full. When an academic publisher is used, the words University and Press are abbreviated.

Note the hanging indent used for citations that run longer than one line.

When citing an eBook, italicise the name of the database and provide the DOI. Omit http:// and https://  from the URL, and place a full stop at the end. You can include the date of access if you think it is relevant to your discussion, although this is optional. 

Usually the edition of the book is only mentioned in the works cited list if it is the second edition or later.

When citing a version of a work already released, identify the version you are using, such as new edition. "ed." is an abbreviation for "edition". 

Note: A pseudonym may be used in a reference list. If the author’s real name is known, it may be added in parentheses. (see 2.1.1)

 

Book with two authors

Format

Print: Last Name, First Name, and First Name Last Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Year of Publication.

eBook: ​Last Name, First Name, and First Name Last Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Year. Title of the database or website, doi.

Examples

Allain, Paul, and Jen Harvie. The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance. 2nd ed., Routledge, 2015.

​Railton, Diane, and Paul Watson. Music Video and the Politics of Representation. Edinburgh UP, 2011. De Gruyter, doi.org/10.1515/9780748633241. 

Explanation

Note that the first author's name is inverted, but the second author's name is not. The authors' names should be in the same order in which they are presented in the work.

When citing a version of a work already released, identify the version you are using. The second edition is abbreviated to 2nd ed.

 

Book with three or more authors

Format

Print: First author's Last Name, First Name, et al. Title of Book. Publisher, Year of Publication.

eBook: First author's Last Name, First Name, et al. Title of Book. Publisher, Year of Publication. Title of the database or website, doi.

Examples

Goldsmith, Ben, et al. Local Hollywood: Global Film Production and the Gold Coast. U Queensland P, 2010.

Booth, Wayne C., et al. The Craft of Research. 4th ed., U of Chicago P, 2016.

Masten, Jeffrey, et al., editors. Language Machines: Technologies of Literary and Cultural Production. Routledge, 2016. Taylor and Francis, doi:10.4324/9781315786872.

Zipes, Jack, et al. Fairy-Tale Films Beyond Disney: International Perspectives. Routledge, 2015. ProQuest, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/monash/detail.action?docID=4014328.

Explanation If a source has three or more authors, then only the first author is listed, followed by et al. ("and others").

 

A chapter or short story from a book with a single author

Format

Print: Last Name, First Name. "Title of Chapter." Title of Book, Publisher, Year, Page range of entry.

eBook: Last Name, First Name. "Title of Chapter." Title of Book, Publisher, Year, Page range of entry. Title of the database or website, doi.

Examples

​​Tribble, Evelyn B. "Authority, Control, Community." Margins and Marginality: The Printed Page in Early Modern England, UP of Virginia, 1993, pp. 11–56.

Birch, Tony. "The Sea of Tranquillity." Shadowboxing. Scribe Publications, 2006, pp. 105-122.

hooks, bell. “Tragic Biography: Resurrecting Henrietta Lacks.” Writing Beyond Race: Living Theory and Practice. Routledge, 2013, pp. 81-91. ProQuest, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/monash/reader.action?docID=1075282&ppg=88.

Explanation

This information applies to a chapter from a book written entirely by a single author. Refer to "Chapter from an edited book" for information on how to cite a chapter from an edited work containing work by multiple authors.

Note: Subtitles are listed following a colon.

Note: An author who chooses to spell all of their name in lower case may be listed this way.

 

Edited book

Format

Print: Last Name, First Name, editor. Title of Book. Publisher, Year of Publication.

eBook: Last Name, First Name, editor. Title of Book. Publisher, Year of Publication. Title of the database or website, doi.

Examples

Newcomb, Horace, editor. Television: The Critical View. 7th ed., Oxford UP, 2007.

Chiluwa, Innocent, and Gwen Bouvier, editors. Twitter: Global Perspectives, Uses and Research Techniques. Nova Science Publishers, 2019. ProQuest, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/monash/detail.action?docID=5769820. 

Simanowski, Roberto, et al., editors. Reading Moving Letters: Digital Literature in Research and Teaching: A Handbook. Transcript Verlag, 2010. De Gruyter, doi:10.14361/9783839411308.

Explanation

If you are referencing an edited book, then the "author" is the editor who put the book together (see p.23). Enter the editor's name where you would usually write the author's. The name is followed by the descriptive label "editor".

If there is more than one editor, then the descriptive label becomes "editors" (plural), and rules for multiple authors are followed.

 

Edited book in a series

Format

Print: Last Name, First Name, and First Name Last Name, editors. Title of Book. Publisher, Year. Series name.

eBook: Last Name, First Name, and First Name Last Name, editors. Title of Book. Publisher, Year. Series name. Title of the database or website, doi.

Examples

Markantonatos, Andreas, and Bernhard Zimmermann, editors. Crisis on Stage: Tragedy and Comedy in Late Fifth-Century Athens. De Gruyter, 2012. Trends in Classics.

King, Stewart. “Detecting Difference/Constructing Community in Basque, Catalan and Galician Crime Fiction.” Iberian Crime Fiction, edited by Nancy Vosburg. U of Wales P, 2011, pp. 51-74. European Crime Fictions. JSTOR, jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qhbbh.6. 

Explanation

If the book is part of a series, you may include the name of the series and the number of the book (if any) at the end of the reference. Quotation marks and italics are not required.

When citing a chapter from a book that is part of a series, cite it as you usually would a chapter, and include the series information at the end of the reference.

 

A chapter or essay from an edited work

Format

Print: Last Name, First Name. "Title of Chapter." Title of Book, edited by Editor's Name(s), Publisher, Year, Page range of entry.

eBook: Last Name, First Name. "Title of Chapter." Title of Book, edited by Editor's Name(s), Publisher, Year, Page range of entry. Title of the database or website, doi.

Examples

Banks, Miranda J. “A Boy for All Planets: Roswell, Smallville and the Teen Male Melodrama.” Teen TV: Genre, Consumption, Identity, edited by Glyn Davis and Kay Dickinson, British Film Institute, 2004, pp. 17-28.

Cicioni, Mirna. “‘No True Darkness?’ The Critical Response to Life is Beautiful in Italy and Australia.” Beyond “Life is Beautiful”: Comedy and Tragedy in the Cinema of Roberto Benigni, edited by Grace Russo Bullaro, Troubador, 2005, pp. 272-91.

Foster, Shannon. "White Bread Dreaming." Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia, edited by Anita Heiss, Black Inc., 2018, pp.93-98. ProQuest, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/monash/reader.action?docID=5346260&ppg=93.

Ó Cathasaigh, Tomás. "The Literature of Medieval Ireland to c. 800: St Patrick to the Vikings." The Cambridge History of Irish Literature, edited by Margaret Kelleher and Philip O'Leary, 2008, pp. 9-31. Cambridge UP, doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521822220.003.

Andersson, Åsa, and Anita Beckman." Young Working-Class Men Without Jobs: Reimagining Work and Masculinity in Postindustrial Sweden." Masculinity, Labour, and Neoliberalism
Working-Class Men in International Perspective
, edited by Charlie Walker and Steven Roberts, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, pp. 101-23. Springer, doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63172-1_5. 

Lewis, Reina. "On Veiling, Vision and Voyage: Cross-Cultural Dressing and Narratives of Identity." Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, edited by Lewis and Sara Mills, Routledge, 2003, pp. 520-41. ProQuest, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/monash/reader.action?docID=1144713&ppg=533.

Coffman, Elizabeth. “Spinning a Collaborative Web: Documentary Projects in the Digital Arena.” New Documentary Ecologies: Emerging Platforms, Practices and Discourses, edited by Kate Nash, et al., Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, pp. 105-23. ProQuest, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/monash/reader.action?docID=1645531&ppg=114.

Bottigheimer, Ruth B. "Europe's First Fairy Tales." The Teller's Tale: Lives of the Classic Fairy Tale Writers, edited by Sophie Raynard, State U of New York P, 2012, pp. 7-12.  ProQuest, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/monash/reader.action?docID=3408644&ppg=16.

Explanation

The author listed at the beginning of the citation is the author of the chapter, short story, poem or essay. So in example one Miranda Banks is the author of the chapter, and Davis and Dickinson are the editors of the book.

Note: If the author of a chapter is also an editor, you don't need to include their given name the second time.

For edited works the page numbers for the chapter, essay, poem and short story are required to be included in the citation. The page range is the pages that each section covers in the book. Note that p. is singular (page) and pp. is plural (pages)."

The title of the chapter in the citation is always put in quotation marks and the title of the book is always italicised.

Note: When a title appears within the title of a chapter or article, it should be italicised. When a title that would normally be italicised appears in an italicised title, place it in quotation marks.

Note: A publisher's name may be omitted if it is essentially the same as the website/database (see the fourth example). 

 

A short story or poem from an edited work

Format

Print: Author of chapter Last Name, First Name. "Title of Chapter." Title of Book, edited by Editor's Name(s), Publisher, Year, Page range of entry.

eBook: Author of chapter Last Name, First Name. "Title of Chapter." Title of Book, edited by Editor's Name(s), Publisher, Year, Page range of entry. Title of the database or website, doi.

        
            

Examples

            

Thurber, James. "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." 21 Essential American Short Stories, edited by Leslie Pockell, Thomas Dunne Books, 2011, pp. 280-84.

davenport, doris. "Miz Clio Savant." Writing Appalachia: An Anthology, edited by Katherine Ledford and Theresa Lloyd, UP of Kentucky, 2020, pp. 515-19. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/j.ctvv411qc.88.

Boully, Jenny. "The Birth in a Narrow Room." The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks, edited by Peter Kahn, et al., U of Arkansas P, 2019, p. 20. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/j.ctvgs0cpc.17.

Explanation

The page range is the pages that the chapter occupies in the book. Note that p. is singular (page) and pp. is plural (pages).

As this source is for a chapter of a book, there is a full stop following the chapter, and there is a comma following the book title. This means that edited by follows a comma.

Note: An author who chooses to spell all of their name in lower case may be listed this way.

 

A reprinted essay or short story in a collection

Format

Print: Last Name, First Name. "Title of Essay/Short Story." Original Publication Year. Title of reprint publicationedited by Editor's First Name Last Name, Reprint Publisher, Year of reprint, Page range of reprint.

eBook: Last Name, First Name. "Title of Essay/Short Story." Original Publication Year. Title of reprint publicationedited by Editor's First Name Last Name, Reprint Publisher, Year of reprint, Page range of reprint. Title of the database or website, doi.

Example

Haigh, A.E. "Dramatic Contests at Athens." 1898. Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, edited by Lynn M. Zott, Gale, 2002, pp.3-12.

Butler, Judith. "Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions." 1999. Feminisms Redux: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism, edited by Robyn Warhol-Down et al., Rutgers UP, 2009, pp. 465-76. ProQuest, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/monash/reader.action?docID=3032152&ppg=487.

Explanation The editor may be omitted if the work is taken from a collection without an editor.

 

An introduction, preface, foreword, or afterword

Format

Print: Author Last Name, First Name [of the part being cited]. "Unique Title." [if present] Name of part being cited. Book title, edited/translated by First Name Last Name, Publisher, Year, Page range of part being cited.

eBook: Author Last Name, First Name [of the part being cited]. "Unique Title." [if present] Name of part being cited. Book title, edited/translated by First Name Last Name, Publisher, Year, Page range of part being cited. Title of the database or website, doi.

Example

Flora, Reis. Foreword. A Discography of Hindustani and Karnatic Music, by Michael S. Kinnear. Greenwood Press, 1985, pp. ix-x.

Casada, Jim. Afterword. The Ocean's Menace, by Archibald Rutledge. U of South Carolina P, 2018, p. 33-40. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/j.ctv6sj845.5.

Kolker, Robert. Introduction. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho: A Casebook, edited by Kolker, Oxford UP, 2004, pp. 23-27. ProQuest, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/monash/reader.action?docID=279772&ppg=34. 

Weeks, Jeffrey. Foreword. Youth, Sexuality and Sexual Citizenship, edited by Peter Aggleton, et al., Routledge, 2019, pp. ix-xiv. ProQuest, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/monash/reader.action?docID=5543944&ppg=10.

Wallach, Rick. "Cormac McCarthy's Canon as Accidental Artifact." Introduction. Myth, Legend, Dust: Critical Responses to Cormac McCarthy, edited by Wallach, Manchester UP, 2000, pp. xiv-xvi.

Explanation

Start the citation with the author of the introduction/foreword/preface/afterword. If the author of the piece is different from the author of the complete work then write the full name of the principal works author after the word "by" (see top examples). If the author of the introduction is also the editor of the book, only their family name is given the second time (see Kolker and Wallach examples).

Where the book is an edited work, then use "edited by" in place of "by" (see the bottom examples).

If the introduction, preface, foreword or afterword has a unique title, give the unique title in quotation marks immediately before the name of the part being cited (see the last example).

Translated book

Format

Print: Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Translated by Translator's Name(s), Publisher, Year.

OR

Print: Last Name, First Name, translator. Title of Book. By First Name Last Name, Publisher, Year.

eBook: Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Translated by Translator's Name(s), Publisher, Year. Title of the database or website, doi.

OR

eBook: Last Name, First Name, translator. Title of Book. By First Name Last Name, Publisher, Year. Title of the database or website, doi.

Example

Kafka, Franz. Metamorphosis and Other Stories. Translated by Michael Hofmann, Penguin, 2007.

Mo Yan (Guǎn Móyè). Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. Translated by Howard Goldblatt, Arcade, 2012.

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. Translated by Mattias Ripa and Blake Ferris, 1st American ed., Pantheon, 2003.

Williams, John R., translator. Metamorphosis and Other Stories. By Franz Kafka, Wordsworth, 2011.

Lattimore, Richmond, translator. The Odyssey of Homer. Harper and Row, 1967.

Sheng Keyi. Death Fugue. Translated by Shelly Bryant, Giramondo, 2014. ProQuest, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/monash/detail.action?docID=1790807.

Pavis, Patrice. Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture. Translated by Loren Kruger, Routledge, 1992. ProQuest, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/monash/detail.action?docID=179227.

Explanation

The first examples show a translated book where the translator's name is in the position of "other contributors", and is preceded by the words translated by.

If your focus is on the translation of a work, then put the translator's name in place of the author's, followed by translator, and give the author's name in the position of "other contributors", as demonstrated in Williams and Lattimore examples. 

Both ways are correct; it depends if your focus is on the work, or the translation of the work.

 

Reprinted edition of a classic text

Format

Print: Title. Version, Publisher, Year of publication.

OR

Title. First Name Last Name, editor or translator. Publisher, Year of publication.

OR

Last Name, First Name, translator. Title. Publisher, date of publication.
 

eBook: Title. Version, Publisher, Year of publication, doi.

Example

The Bible. English Standard Version, Crossway Bibles, 2007.

The Bible: Authorized King James Version. Edited by Robert Carroll and Stephen Prickett. Oxford UP, 1998, doi: 10.1093/actrade/9780199535941.

Abdel Haleem, M. A. S., translator. The Qur'an: English Translation and Parallel Arabic Text. Oxford UP, 2010.

Aeschylus. The Oresteia. Translated by Alan Shapiro and Peter Burian, Oxford UP, 2011. ProQuest, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/monash/detail.action?docID=679356.

Explanation

In the first example the source is identified as a version, indicating the work as having been produced in more than one form. The second example refers to the edition and carries the information of the editor.

A citation for scriptural writings usually begins with the title. If there is an editor or translator, their name should be listed after the title as another contributor.

 

Non Roman characters

Format

Print: Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Year of Publication.

OR

Print: Last Name, First Name (in Roman Characters). Title of Book (in original characters) [Transliterated Title; Translated Title]. Publisher, Year of Publication.

eBook: Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Year of Publication. Title of the database or website, doi.

OR

eBook:Last Name, First Name (in Roman Characters). Title of Book (in original characters) [Transliterated Title; Translated Title]. Publisher, Year of Publication. Title of the database or website, doi.

Example

Sorokin, Vladimir. День опричника [Denʹ oprichnika; Day of the Oprichnik]. Zakharov, 2006.

Kimmerling, Anna, and Oleg Leonodovich. "Я вырос в сталинскую эпоху": политический автопортрет советского журналиста ["I︠A︡ vyros v stalinskui︠u︡ ėpokhu": Politicheskiĭ avtoportret sovetskogo zhurnalista; "I Grew Up in Stalin’s Era": Political Self-Portrait of a Soviet Journalist]. HSE, 2019. Eastview, doi:10.17323/978-5-7598-1795-6.

Lu Xun. 鲁迅全集. 第一至二十集 [Lu Xun quan ji. di yi zhi er shi ji; Complete Work of Lu Xun]. Guang ming ri bao chu ban she, 2012.

Wang Anyi. 窗外与窗里 [Chuang wai yu chuang li; Outside and Inside the Window]. Zhongguo wen lian chu ban she, 2008.

Explanation

When using a reference published in a language using non-Roman characters, the author’s name and the publisher should be transliterated into Roman characters.

For the title you may use the original script and transliteration in addition to the English translation. The translation and transliteration should be put in square brackets.

If the given name and the family name of the first author are not inverted, there is no need for a comma after the family name.

You do not need to italicise the title if it is not in Roman characters.

 

Illustrated book

Format

Print: Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Illustrated by First Name Last Name, Publisher, Year of Publication.

OR

Print: Last Name, First Name, illustrator. Title of Book. By First Name Last Name, Publisher, Year of Publication.

 

eBook: Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Illustrated by First Name Last Name, Publisher, Year of Publication. Title of the database or website, doi.

eBook: Last Name, First Name, illustrator. Title of Book. By First Name Last Name, Publisher, Year of Publication. Title of the database or website, doi.

Example

Rowe, Amy, and Philip Rowe. Ernest the Fierce Mouse. Illustrated by Andrea Norton, Gallery Books, 1990.

Murphy, Aunty Joy. Welcome to Country. Illustrated by Lisa Kennedy, Walker Books Australia, 2016.

Beehler, Bruce M. Natural Encounters: Biking, Hiking, and Birding Through the Seasons. Illustrated by John C. Anderton, Yale UP, 2019. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/j.ctvgc62fw.

Choukas-Bradley, Melanie. The Joy of Forest Bathing: Reconnect with Wild Places and Rejuvenate Your Life. Illustrated by Lieke van der Vorst, Quarto, 2018. ProQuest, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/monash/detail.action?docID=5450948.

Rackham, Arthur, illustrator. Tales From Shakespeare. By Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb, Weathervane Books, 1975. 

​Denslow, W. W., illustrator. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. By L. Frank Baum, Signet-Penguin, 2006. 

Explanation

If the illustrator is relevant to your discussion, you can include them in "other contributors" as seen in the first example, above.

The last example demonstrates how to reference an illustrated book if your discussion focuses only on the illustrator/illustrations. Put the illustrator's name first, and include the author of the book later in the reference, in the position of "other contributors", as seen above.

Both ways are correct, it depends if your focus is on the illustrations, or on the work as a whole.

 

Book with a corporate author

Format

Print: Organisation Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Year of Publication.

eBook: Organisation Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Year of Publication. Title of the database or website, doi.

Examples

Museum of Modern Art. Pixar: Twenty Years of Animation. Australian Centre for the Moving Image, 2005.

The Multigraph Collective. Interacting with Print: Elements of Reading in the Era of Print Saturation. U of Chicago P, 2019. ProQuest, ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/lib/monash/detail.action?docID=4914482.

A Place to Call Home: Celebrating 50 Years of the Melbourne International Film Festival. Melbourne International Film Festival, 2001.

Seeing Ourselves: Reflections on Diversity in Australian TV Drama. Screen Australia, 2016. screenaustralia.gov.au/getmedia/157b05b4-255a-47b4-bd8b-9f715555fb44/TV-Drama-Diversity.pdf. 

Explanation

A corporate author may include a commission, a committee, a government agency, or a group that does not identify individual members on the title page.

Where an organisation is the author and there is a different publisher, then list the name of corporate authors in the place where an author's name typically appears at the beginning of the entry (see the top example). If the organisation is both the author and publisher, omit the author and start your citation with the title. Include the organisation as the publisher (see the bottom examples. Do not include ''The'' before the name of an organisation in the works-cited list).

Book with a corporate author prepared by an editor

Format

Print: Organisation Name. Title of Book. Edited by First Name Last Name. Publisher, Year of Publication. 

eBook: Organisation Name. Title of Book. Edited by First Name Last Name. Publisher, Year of Publication. Title of the database or website, doi.

Example

​Australian Theatre Workshop. The Best of the One Act Plays. Edited by Mathew Clausen. Pearson, 2011.

BSE Collective. Black Sexual Economies. Edited by Adrienne D. Davis. U of Illinois Press, 2019. JSTOR, doi: 10.5406/j.ctvmx3hw6.

Explanation If the work was prepared by an editor, include their name after the title.