Note: This page deals with CSE style citation in the Name-Year system. Click here for Citation-Sequence and Citation-Name. 

On this page

• General Guidelines
• Print
  • Standard book format
  • Multiple authors
  • Edited Book
  • Organizational Author
  • Chapter or Section of a Book
  • Chapter or Section of an Edited Book
• E-Books

General Guidelines

• Author/Editor names are listed in order of appearance, citing the surname, followed by a space, and the author initials as given. e.g. Smith E, or Jones FH
• Date of publication refers to the year in which the work was published, and should always be included in a reference. If no date of publication can be found, insert [date unknown] 
• Book title: Capitalize only the first letter of the first word and proper nouns and adjectives.
• Edition is only listed if it is later than the 1st edition
• Place of publication is listed as the city, and the state or province in brackets (e.g. Ottawa (ON) or Denver (CO) ). For cities outside of the U.S. and Canada include the country in brackets (e.g. London (England) ). If you wish, you may use the 2 letter ISO country code (e.g. Rome (IT) or Geneva (CH) ) 
• Extent and Notes are entirely optional citation elements
  • Extent can refer to pagination (e.g. p. 75-77 or 354 p.), number of volumes (e.g. 5 vol.) , or screens.
  • Notes may indicate that the work is in a language other than English, the ISBN, location, URL, or DOI

Print

Standard Book Format

Author. Date. Title. Edition. Place of publication: publisher. Extent. Notes.

Example

Maynard Smith J. 1986. The problems of biology. Oxford (United Kingdom): Oxford University Press.

Multiple Authors

For any book with more than 1 author, seperate names by a comma.

Author(s). Date. Title. Edition. Place of publication: Publisher. Extent. Notes. 

Example

Cotterell B, Kamminga J. 1990. Mechanics of pre-industrial technology: an introduction to the mechanics of ancient and traditional material culture. Cambridge (United Kingdom): Cambridge University Press.

Note: For any book with more than 10 authors, list the first 10 followed by "et al."

Edited Book

Editor(s), editor(s). Date. Title. Place of publication: Publisher. Extent. Notes. 

Example

Rozenburg JJ, editor. 2003. Bioethical and ethical issues surrounding the trials and Code of Nuremburg: Nuremberg revisted. Lewiston (NY): Edwin Mellen Press.

Organizational Author

Organization Name. Date. Title. Edition. Place of publication: Publisher. Extent. Notes. 

Example

Society for Experimental Biology. 1967. Aspects of the biology of ageing. Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press.

Chapter or Section of a Book

Author(s). Date. Title. Place of publication: Publisher. Chapter or Section, Title; Extent. Notes. 

Example

Moroz A. 2012. The common extremalities in biology and physics: maximum energy dissipation principle in chemistry, biology, physics and evolution. London (United Kingdom): Elsevier. Ch. 2.3.2, On vector formulation of additive control; p. 97-99.

Chapter or Section of an Edited Book

Author(s). Date. Title of part. In: Editor(s), editors. Title. Place of Publication: Publisher. Extent. Notes. 

Example

Zahari S. 2013. Alcohol metabolism and genetic control. In: Boyle P, editor. Alcohol: science policy, and public health. Oxford (United Kingdom): Oxford University Press. p.57-70.

E-Book

Author(s). Date. Title of book. Edition. Place of publication: publisher. [updated YYYY MMM DD; accessed YYYY MMM DD]. Extent. Notes.

Example

Longo G, Montévil M. 2014. Biological time, symmetries and singularities: perspectives on life. Berlin (Germany): Springer. [accessed 2019 Mar 25].