Cite your source within your essay text. All referencing styles require some type of in-text citation to back up the "References" section at the end of the essay. Simply cite the author's surname and the date of publication in brackets when you have referred to a textbook. For example, if you have included information from John Smith's section of a textbook published in 1994, you would write "(Smith, 1994)" after making the point, or precede it with "Smith (1994) argues that..." to comply with most referencing styles. In MLA style, cite the author's name within the text with the page number in parentheses.
Find the name of the author of the section of text you have used. If your textbook has multiple authors, it can usually be found in the contents page or at the start of the relevant section. Start a "References" section at the end of your essay to house all the required information. Write the surname of the author followed by the initial of the first name in Harvard or APA styles referencing. Write the surname followed by the first name in MLA style, and the full name in Chicago Style.
Locate the date of publication. This is normally found in the first few pages of a textbook. In Harvard and APA styles referencing, the year of publication is written in brackets just after the author's name. In MLA and Chicago styles referencing, the date goes closer to the end, after the details of the publisher.
Find the title of the book or article within the book that you have referenced. This will be found at the start of the chapter if the text book has multiple authors and an editor that compiled them, or is the title of the book if it is entirely written by the same author(s). If the relevant section is only a component of the book, write the title in quotation marks. Write the book name in italics, or underlined in MLA style. If you are only referencing a component of the book, after the title in quotations, write "in" followed by the title of the whole book in italics. In Harvard and APA styles, write the name of the editor followed by "(ed.)" before the name of the book. In MLA and Chicago styles, the editors' names go after the book title.
Insert the relevant page numbers after the book title. In Harvard and APA styles, the page numbers go in brackets, and in MLA they aren't contained in brackets. In Chicago Style, it is the last thing that is included.
Find the name of the publisher and the city in which the textbook was published. This can normally be found in the first few pages of the book. Write the information as "city: publisher," and put it in parentheses (and before the page number) if you are using Chicago style. In Chicago and MLA styles, the year of publication is included just after the publisher's information (in the same parentheses when using Chicago referencing).