Skip to Main Content
OASIS

Nontraditional Sources: Ebooks

Last updated 5/6/2020

 

Visual: Screen opens to a background image with a person typing on a laptop and a notebook and pencil, along with the Walden University Writing Center logo. The title Walden University Writing Center and tagline “Your writing, grammar, and APA experts” appears on the screen. The screen changes to show the series title “Nontraditional Sources” and the video title “Ebooks.”

Audio: Guitar music

 

Visual: Slide changes to one titled “Ebooks”. Body of slide reads as follows:

Inman, J. A. (2000). Taking flight with OWLs: Explaining electronic writing center work. Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410602121

Publication element:

  • Always include the publisher
  • Include either DOI (preferred) or place you purchased the ebook (e.g., Amazon)

Audio: Ebooks might be a type of source that you use as a student as part of our online university, especially since many, many books are available online, and ebook readers, like Kindles, are fairly common. When you cite ebooks, you’ll use a similar format to a traditional, print book. You’ll start with your author, and then include the publication year and title. Note that the title is in sentence case and is italicized. In particular with titles, make sure you’re using the title of the ebook version you read, as sometimes titles can vary from print and ebook versions. Finally, you’ll include the publication element, which in this case is the publisher and electronic retrieval information. Ebooks often have DOIs now, so if the ebook has a DOI number, include it, as this is the information APA prefers. If the ebook does not have a DOI number, then include a URL to the place where you purchased the book, like the Amazon page for the ebook.  

 

Visual: At bottom of screen appears a text box that reads as follows:

Locating a quoted passage:

“Use the approach that will best help readers find the quotation” (APA, 2020, p. 273)

  • Acceptable: Heading or section name, paragraph number, Kindle page number
  • Unacceptable: Kindle location numbers

(Inman, 2000, “OWL Websites,” para. 5)

Audio: Once you have the reference entry, we can create a citation for the source. Like any other source, you’ll include the author and year in your citation. In our example, we’ve listed the author, Inman, and the year, 2000.

However, unlike any other source, your ebook may not have page numbers. So, if you are quoting the source and need to indicate to the reader where to locate the quoted passage, APA’s overall recommendation is that writers “use the approach that will best help readers find the quotation.” In this case, you can include a combination of a heading or section name, paragraph number, or, if you’re using a Kindle ebook, a Kindle page number. APA allows for any combination of those elements, and just asks that you provide whatever information will best help your reader. However, note that APA does ask us to avoid Kindle location numbers; these numbers change depending on which Kindle you use, so they are not stable and shouldn’t be used in your citation.

In our example, I included a chapter title with the paragraph number within that chapter for my reader to locate the quoted passage, which completes the citation for this ebook.

 

Visual: The screen changes to an ending slide a background image with a person typing on a laptop and a notebook and pencil, along with the Walden University Writing Center logo. The email address writingsupport@mail.waldenu.edu appears on the screen.