Author, A. A. (Year). *Title of work*. Publisher.
Let's break it down and add some examples:
* Author, A. A.: List the author's last name, followed by their initials. Use an ampersand (&) to separate multiple authors. If there are more than 20 authors, list the first 19, then add an ellipsis (...) and the last author.
* (Year): The year of publication in parentheses.
* Title of work: The title of the book is italicized. Capitalize only the first letter of the first word of the title, the subtitle (if any), and proper nouns.
* Publisher: The name of the publishing company.
Examples:
* One Author:
Smith, J. (2023). *The psychology of learning*. Routledge.
* Two Authors:
Jones, A., & Brown, B. (2022). *Understanding social media*. Oxford University Press.
* Three or More Authors:
Davis, M., Wilson, K., & Garcia, R. (2021). *Effective communication strategies*. Pearson.
* Edited Book:
Miller, S. (Ed.). (2020). *Advances in cognitive neuroscience*. Cambridge University Press. (Note the "(Ed.)" after the editor's name)
* Corporate Author:
American Psychological Association. (2020). *Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.)*. American Psychological Association.
* Book with a DOI:
Field, A. (2013). *Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS statistics*. Sage. https://doi.org/xxxxxxxxx (Replace xxxxxxxx with the actual DOI)
* Book with no DOI and no page numbers (e.g., an ebook): The DOI or URL is not needed if the book does not have one. If available, include the URL where you accessed the book.
Important Considerations:
* Accuracy: Double-check all information against the book's title page and copyright page.
* Consistency: Maintain consistency in formatting throughout your reference list.
* Retrieval information: Include a DOI or URL if available. If neither is available, you may include the location of publication (city, state). However, for ebooks, the URL of the platform the book was accessed from is preferred.
Remember to use a consistent hanging indent in your reference list (the first line is flush left, subsequent lines are indented). Most word processors can automatically format this.