How to Cite Books and Book Chapters in a Malaysian Thesis Using APA 7th Edition
Knowing how to cite books and book chapters in a Malaysian thesis using APA 7th edition correctly is essential for every postgraduate student, since books and edited volumes form a significant part of the reference base in most disciplines — particularly in the humanities, social sciences, management, and education. Book citation errors are among the most common reference list mistakes in Malaysian theses, partly because the rules for books differ in important ways from journal articles and partly because books come in more format varieties (single-author, edited volumes, book chapters, e-books, translated works) each with its own citation format.
This guide covers every book citation type you are likely to encounter when citing books and book chapters in a Malaysian thesis.
Single-Author and Multi-Author Books
The basic APA 7th edition format for citing books in a Malaysian thesis:
Author, A. A. (Year). Title of book: Subtitle if any (edition if not first). Publisher.
Examples:
Creswell, J. W. (2023). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (6th ed.). SAGE Publications.
Hair, J. F., Black, W. C., Babin, B. J., & Anderson, R. E. (2019). Multivariate data analysis (8th ed.). Cengage Learning.
Key formatting notes when you cite books in a Malaysian thesis: the book title is italicised; the subtitle follows the title after a colon; the edition is included in parentheses after the title only for second edition and beyond (not for first editions); the publisher is listed without the city of publication in APA 7th edition (a change from APA 6th edition where city was required).
Chapters in Edited Books
When citing book chapters in a Malaysian thesis, the format differs significantly from single-author book format because the author of the chapter is different from the editor(s) of the volume.
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of chapter. In E. E. Editor & F. F. Editor (Eds.), Title of book (pp. xx-xx). Publisher. https://doi.org/xxxxx
Example:
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (2022). Grounded theory methodology. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (6th ed., pp. 273-285). SAGE Publications.
Common errors when citing book chapters in a Malaysian thesis: italicising the chapter title instead of the book title (the chapter title is not italicised; the book title is); omitting the page range of the chapter; omitting “Eds.” after the editor names; and formatting the editors’ names in the same author format (Last, First) rather than the In… (Eds.) format (First initial Last).
E-Books and Books Retrieved Online
For e-books with DOIs, cite books in a Malaysian thesis by adding the DOI at the end of the standard book citation:
Brown, B. (2021). Atlas of the heart. Random House. https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx
For e-books without DOIs that are available from online platforms (e.g., Google Books, Project Gutenberg, or publisher websites), include the URL at the end. Do not include database names (such as EBSCOhost or ProQuest) for books accessed through library databases — these are not needed for books as they are for journal articles.
Malaysian-Published Books and Local Authors
When citing Malaysian-published books in a Malaysian thesis — textbooks published by Malaysian publishers such as Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, Universiti Malaya Press, Prentice Hall Malaysia, or McGraw-Hill Education Malaysia — use the same format as other books. The publisher name is used as it appears on the book’s title page.
For Malaysian government-published books and official publications that take book form, treat the government agency as the author if no individual author is identified, following the same principles as for government report citations.
Translated Books
When citing books in a Malaysian thesis that were originally published in another language and you are using a translated version:
Original Author, A. A. (Year of translation). Title of translated work (T. Translator, Trans.). Publisher. (Original work published Year)
The year of the original publication appears in parentheses at the end. In-text citations include both the original publication year and the translation year: (Piaget, 1936/2013).
Multiple Works by the Same Author
When you cite books and book chapters in a Malaysian thesis and have multiple works by the same author, list them in chronological order in the reference list (earliest first). Works by the same author published in the same year are distinguished with lowercase letters: (Ahmad, 2021a) and (Ahmad, 2021b), with ‘a’ assigned to the work that appears first alphabetically by title.
Conclusion
How to cite books and book chapters in a malaysian thesis using apa 7th edition accurately requires attention to the differences between source types and careful application of APA 7th edition rules that differ in several important ways from APA 6th edition. When you cite books and book chapters in a malaysian thesis using apa 7th edition, use reference management software to store and format references automatically, but always verify the generated citation against the rules in this guide — automated citation generators occasionally make errors with less common source types.
