How to find books: Home

Elements to include:

1. Authors or Editors
2. Year of publication (in round brackets)
3. Title (in italics)
4. Edition (if applicable)
5. Publisher
6. Series and volume number (if applicable)

Note that it is no longer necessary to include a place of publication in a book reference (update in the 13th ed. of Cite Them Right, August 2025).

Examples:

Authored book:

Reference list: Ashbourn, J. (2014) Biometrics in the new world: the cloud, mobile technology and pervasive identity. 2nd edn. Springer.

In-text citation: (Ashbourn, 2014)

Edited book:

Reference list: Nasta, S. and Stein, M.U. (eds) (2020) The Cambridge history of Black and Asian British writing. Cambridge University Press.

In-text citation: (Nasta and Stein, 2020)

E-book:

Where an e-book looks like a printed book (usually PDFs) with publication information and page numbers - cite it in the same way as a printed book (above). Where specific pagination details are not available use the information you have e.g. %, loc, chapter/page/paragraph. Also add the DOI or web address to the full reference.

Reference list: Prior, H. (2020) Away with the penguins. Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Away-Penguins-Hazel-Prior-ebook (Accessed: 20 July 2025).

In-text citation: (Prior, 2020, 74%)

Reference list: Faulkner, W. (2000) Light in August. Available at: https://www.vlebooks.com/vleweb/product/openreader?id=UniReading&isbn=9781446485521 (Accessed: 10 June 2025).

In-text citation: (Faulkner, 2000, ch. 7, p. 105)

Suggesting books for the Library

If a book you need is not in the Library we are happy to look into purchasing it. Submit your suggestion using the form below:

We are also keen to diversify our collections. Please use the form below to suggest a book or topic you would like the Library to purchase to create a more diverse and inclusive collection:

Elements to include:

1. Chapter author(s)
2. Year of publication (in round brackets)
3. Chapter title in single quotation marks
4. 'in' followed by book author(s)/editor(s)
5. Book title (in italics)
6. Publisher's name
7. Chapter pagination

Include the page extent of the whole chapter when writing your full citation. Put just the pages you have referred to in the in-text citation.

Note that it is no longer necessary to include a place of publication in a chapter reference (update in the 13th ed. of Cite Them Right, August 2025).

Example:

Reference list: Singh, H., Khurana, L.K. and Singh, R. (2018) 'Pharmaceutical development', in Vohora, D. and Singh, G. (eds) Pharmaceutical medicine and translational clinical research. Academic Press, pp.33-46.

In-text citation: (Singh, Khurana and Singh, 2018, p.35)