# Reading a book for an essay and citing it as you go

**How do I read a book for an essay without reading all of it, and cite it correctly as I go?** To read a book for an essay, start with its contents, introduction and index, find the chapter that answers your question and read that chapter closely. Record, as you read, the edition, the copyright year, the chapter's own authors in an edited book and the page of every point, marking each note as quotation or paraphrase.

Published 2026-09-24 by EdCitation. https://edcitation.com/newsletter/reading-a-book-for-an-essay-and-citing-it-as-you-go

A book set for an essay is rarely meant to be read from page 1. *Australian Urban Policy: Prospects and Pathways* (ANU Press, 2024) has 23 chapters and an index from page 461. An essay asking whether Australia's housing affordability problem is a failure of national policy needs perhaps 20 of those pages, and must say exactly which.

EdCitation publishes this guide to reading an academic book for an essay and citing it as you go. It follows that edited collection, and a monograph it leads to, from contents page to checked reference list, with four universities' note-taking and reading advice and each style's rules, all read on 24 September 2026. EdCitation's part: the [Library](https://edcitation.com/tools/library) to find and keep the books, [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite) to build each reference from the publisher's record, and [Verify references](https://edcitation.com/verify-references) to check the list.

The essay question is ours; the books, pages and quotations are real.

## How do you read a book for an essay without reading all of it?

Read with your question in front of you, use the contents page, the introduction and the index to find the part that answers it, and read that part closely. The University of Leeds Library (n.d.-a) asks students to settle why they are reading first, then to check the covers, contents page and index. The University of Reading (2026) adds a test: look up something you already know in the index and read a paragraph or two to see how the author handles it.

### What the contents, introduction and index showed

| Part of the book | What it showed for the housing question | Pages |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Contents | Part 5, Justice and wellbeing, holds three housing chapters: Troy; Pawson and Milligan (chapter 18); Gurran and Shrestha | 329, 349, 369 |
| Introduction, "Structure of this book" | A summary of each chapter; Pawson and Milligan's is the one arguing for a national housing policy | 14 to 17; housing on 16 |
| Index, "housing affordability" | 3, 10, 150, 173, 175, 342, 369–81, with sub-entries such as "compact cities as solution to 205" | From 461 |
| Chapter 18's own introduction | Its aim: to assess the case for a national housing policy and how one could be justified | 350 |

The introduction is itself a chapter, by Freestone et al. (2024), cited under their names if you use it. The index found what the contents could not: page 205 sits in Easthope and Kerr's chapter on compact cities and page 150 in Davies's on regional settlement, and neither title mentions housing.

### When the book has no index

Not every edited collection has one: *Successful Public Policy*, another ANU Press collection, ends with its last chapter's references (Luetjens et al., 2019). The introduction then does the index's work, and a PDF can be searched.

## How do you read the chapter that answers your question?

Skim its introduction, headings and conclusion, then read it whole and slowly. Leeds accepts that reading for detail may take more than one pass, and says to stop when information starts to repeat or your questions are answered (University of Leeds Library, n.d.-b).

### Follow its references outward

A chapter's reference list is a reading list for your essay. Pawson and Milligan (2024) send readers to "Pawson et al. 2020: 339–58", a monograph by Pawson, Milligan and Yates, and take a figure on home ownership from a 2023 report by Whelan and colleagues. Note, too, the book's house style, "Milligan and Tiernan 2011: 396": your essay cites in your module's style, not the book's.

## How should your notes keep page numbers and tell quotation from paraphrase?

Write the source's full details once at the top, then give every note its own page number and a mark saying whose words it holds. UNSW Sydney (n.d.) puts the bibliographic details at the top of each page, the author's words in quotation marks, and your comments in a second column. Sydney (2026) puts the page beside each note and asks for notes in your own words where possible.

### A page of notes on chapter 18

1. **Header, written once:** Pawson, H., and Milligan, V. Ch. 18, "Towards a national housing policy for the 2020s", pp. 349–368. In *Australian Urban Policy: Prospects and Pathways*, eds Robert Freestone, Bill Randolph and Wendy Steele (title page). ANU Press, © 2024. No edition stated. DOI 10.22459/AUP.2024.18.
2. **Q, p. 351:** "many of the key levers are held at the national level"
3. **P, p. 350:** No national housing policy or plan since Curtin's postwar reconstruction schemes.
4. **S, p. 349:** Home ownership at 25 to 34 down from 61% to 43% since 1981. Whelan et al.'s 2023 figure, not theirs: find the report.
5. **S, p. 351:** A "long term abrogation of responsibility" is Milligan and Tiernan's 2011 phrase, quoted in the chapter.
6. **Me:** Supports my second paragraph. Does Gurran and Shrestha's chapter 19 disagree?

Q is a quotation, copied exactly; P a paraphrase in your own words; S someone else's point the chapter reports; Me your own thinking, kept apart. A note marked like this cannot turn into accidental plagiarism three weeks later; the writing side is in [when to paraphrase, quote or summarise](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/paraphrase-quote-or-summarise).

### Someone else's words inside the chapter

Notes 4 and 5 are the trap. APA asks you to read the original where you can, and otherwise to write "as cited in", listing only the work you read: (Whelan et al., 2023, as cited in Pawson & Milligan, 2024) (American Psychological Association, 2022c). The Cite Them Right guide at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) uses "quoted in" and "cited in" the same way (University of the West of Scotland Library, n.d.-b). Here the original is easy to reach: its title in [Find sources](https://edcitation.com/) brought the report back first, DOI 10.18408/ahuri7327001.

## What should you record about the book, and where do you find it?

Take the details from the title page and the copyright page on the first day, not from the reading list, the cover or a database record, which disagree often enough to matter.

| Detail | Where it is | What this book showed |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Chapter authors and pages | The contents page and the chapter's first page | Pawson and Milligan, 349–368 |
| Every editor | The title page | Freestone, Randolph and Steele; the chapter's DOI record names only the first two |
| Copyright year | The copyright page | "This edition © 2024 ANU Press" |
| Edition | The title and copyright pages | None stated, so the first |
| Publisher, DOI, ISBN | The copyright page | ANU Press; 10.22459/AUP.2024; print ISBN 9781760466299 |
| The reference itself | Built from those details | EdCitation's [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite/apa), then checked against this table |

ANU Press's own page lists all three editors too (ANU Press, n.d.).

### The year and the edition, in the monograph

The monograph's first edition went online on 14 December 2019 but carries a 2020 copyright (Pawson et al., 2020), and APA takes the year from the copyright page (American Psychological Association, 2020a). A second edition, substantially revised by its publisher's account, followed in 2025 (Pawson et al., 2025). The chapter's "339–58" points into the first; a second edition's pages need not match. Cite the edition you read, with its year and the pages in your copy.

### Monograph, edited collection or textbook chapter

In an edited collection, reference the chapter under its own authors, with the editors after "In" (American Psychological Association, 2020b). For a monograph or authored textbook, the book gets the entry and the chapter goes in the citation, as in APA's (McEwen & Wills, 2014, Chapter 16, p. 363). Textbook cases are in [how to cite a textbook chapter](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/how-to-cite-a-textbook-chapter).

## How do you cite page numbers in APA 7 and Harvard?

In APA 7 a quotation always takes a page and a paraphrase may take one; in Cite Them Right Harvard, as UWS teaches it, both take a page when the point comes from a specific page.

**APA 7 reference**

Pawson, H., & Milligan, V. (2024). Towards a national housing policy for the 2020s. In R. Freestone, B. Randolph, & W. Steele (Eds.), *Australian urban policy: Prospects and pathways* (pp. 349–368). ANU Press. https://doi.org/10.22459/AUP.2024.18

Quotation: Pawson and Milligan (2024) argue that "many of the key levers are held at the national level" (p. 351). Paraphrase: Australia has had no national housing plan since the postwar reconstruction schemes (Pawson & Milligan, 2024, p. 350).

APA requires the page for a quotation (American Psychological Association, 2022b) and calls it optional, though useful in a book, for a paraphrase (American Psychological Association, 2022a).

**Harvard (Cite Them Right) reference**

Pawson, H. and Milligan, V. (2024) 'Towards a national housing policy for the 2020s', in R. Freestone, B. Randolph and W. Steele (eds) *Australian urban policy: prospects and pathways*. ANU Press, pp. 349–368.

Quotation: (Pawson and Milligan, 2024, p. 351). Paraphrase: (Pawson and Milligan, 2024, p. 350). UWS asks for the page in both and follows the 13th edition, which dropped the place of publication (University of the West of Scotland Library, n.d.-a); EdCitation's Harvard follows the 12th, which keeps a place when the record holds one.

### The page in all six styles

| Style | The quotation from page 351, cited | Rule read at |
| --- | --- | --- |
| APA 7 | (Pawson & Milligan, 2024, p. 351) | APA Style, Quotations |
| Harvard (Cite Them Right) | (Pawson and Milligan, 2024, p. 351) | UWS Library |
| MLA 9 | (Pawson and Milligan 351) | MLA Style Center |
| Chicago 18 author-date | (Pawson and Milligan 2024, 351) | Chicago's sample citations |
| IEEE | [1, p. 351] | IEEE Reference Guide |
| Vancouver | (1) for the source, (p. 351) after the quotation | Imperial College London |

MLA wants the page whenever a specific part is quoted or paraphrased (Modern Language Association, 2021); Chicago drops a chapter's page range from the reference but cites pages in the text (University of Chicago Press, n.d.); the IEEE's pattern is [3, pp. 5–10] (IEEE, 2025); Imperial College London (n.d.) puts the page after the quoted words.

## How does EdCitation help you cite a book as you read?

EdCitation is the best tool for this job, because every entry it gives is looked up in the publisher's record, never written. The record for chapter 18 held its authors, pages 349–368 and DOI, which a chatbot can only guess at, and where a record fell short EdCitation showed the gap rather than fill it.

### Find and keep the books in the Library

The [Library](https://edcitation.com/tools/library) searches textbooks and scholarly books by title, author, subject or ISBN across 31 disciplines, narrowed by kind, language and year. On 24 September 2026 "housing policy Australia", newest first, returned 37 books, Pawson, Milligan and Yates's *Housing Policy in Australia* first. Its card leads to a shop page for a paid copy and to nearby libraries holding it, saves it to My Books, and cites it. The card says 2019, the first edition's online year, even under the second edition's ISBN, so take the year from the book. The ANU collection had no card; ANU Press publishes it free to download. [Finding a book in a library near you](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/find-a-book-in-a-library-near-you) follows a card to the shelf.

### Build each reference in Cite a source

Given chapter 18's DOI, [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite/apa) returned on 27 September 2026:

Pawson, H., & Milligan, V. (2024). Towards a national housing policy for the 2020s. In R. Freestone & B. Randolph (Eds.), *Australian urban policy: Prospects and pathways* (pp. 349–368). ANU Press. https://doi.org/10.22459/AUP.2024.18

Authors, year, pages and DOI are right, and both titles are in sentence case, as APA 7 asks. One gap comes from the record: Wendy Steele is missing, because ANU Press's deposit lists Steele as the book's author (the collection's own DOI returns "Steele, W. (2024)" with two editors). Add Steele, as in the reference above. The collection's ISBN, 9781760466299, which the library catalogue lacks, was found through the publisher's record and brought back the same "Steele, W. (2024)" entry. The monograph's first-edition ISBN gave 2019, its DOI 2020, the copyright year. For IEEE, add the place its guide asks for, Canberra, Australia.

### Keep the list with your module

With a free account, what you cite is saved to your reference list: tag each entry with the module and assignment, filter by tag as you write, and set each in its style. Bookmark what you have not read, the report behind note 4 for one, to your reading list. [Building a personal library for your degree](https://edcitation.com/newsletter/build-a-personal-library-for-your-degree) covers My Books across the years.

### Check the finished list in Verify references

[Verify references](https://edcitation.com/verify-references) returned the introduction, chapter 18 and the 2020 monograph verified: "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches." It caught three slips hurried notes produce. Chapter 18 under the editors' names came back "check this": "The DOI and title are right, but the first author differs. Check the names." The monograph without Milligan, and chapter 18 under Pawson alone, both came back: "The publisher's record also names Milligan, who is not in your entry. Check the authors."

### What it costs

Neither Cite a source nor Verify references asks for an account or a payment. A free account keeps the tagged reference list, the reading list and My Books, and opens the Library's catalogue, buying links and nearby library copies. Reading and borrowing among more than 5 million books, a collection EdCitation compiled, comes with Max at $24 a month ([Pricing](https://edcitation.com/pricing)).

## Quick questions

### Do I have to read the whole book for an essay?

Rarely. Use the contents, the introduction and the index to find the chapter that answers your question, read that closely, and skim the pages the index points to elsewhere.

### Does a paraphrase from a book need a page number?

In APA 7 it is optional, though useful in a book. Cite Them Right Harvard, as UWS teaches it, and MLA 9 ask for one whenever the point comes from a specific page.

### Who do I cite for a chapter in an edited book?

The chapter's own authors, not the editors: Pawson and Milligan for chapter 18, with Freestone, Randolph and Steele named after "In" in the reference.

### Which year do I use for a book that went online before its copyright date?

The year on the copyright page. The first edition of Pawson, Milligan and Yates went online in December 2019 and is cited as 2020.

### Can EdCitation cite a chapter of an edited book?

Yes, from the chapter's DOI: EdCitation's [Cite a source](https://edcitation.com/cite) looks the chapter up in the publisher's record and sets its entry with the editors that record holds; check them against the title page. Without a chapter DOI, give it the book's ISBN and add the chapter's authors, title and pages from the chapter itself.

## References

- American Psychological Association. (2020a). *Book/ebook references*. APA Style. [https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/book-references](https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/book-references)
- American Psychological Association. (2020b). *Chapter in an edited book/ebook references*. APA Style. [https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/edited-book-chapter-references](https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/edited-book-chapter-references)
- American Psychological Association. (2022a). *Paraphrases*. APA Style. [https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/paraphrasing](https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/paraphrasing)
- American Psychological Association. (2022b). *Quotations*. APA Style. [https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/quotations](https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/quotations)
- American Psychological Association. (2022c). *Secondary sources*. APA Style. [https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/secondary-sources](https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/secondary-sources)
- ANU Press. (n.d.). *Australian urban policy: Prospects and pathways*. Retrieved September 24, 2026, from [https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/australian-urban-policy](https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/australian-urban-policy)
- Freestone, R., Randolph, B., & Steele, W. (2024). Whither Australian urban policy? In R. Freestone, B. Randolph, & W. Steele (Eds.), *Australian urban policy: Prospects and pathways* (pp. 3–20). ANU Press. [https://doi.org/10.22459/AUP.2024.01](https://doi.org/10.22459/AUP.2024.01)
- IEEE. (2025). *IEEE reference style guide for authors* (Version 3.28.2025). IEEE Author Center. [https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/IEEE_Reference_Guide.pdf](https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/IEEE_Reference_Guide.pdf)
- Imperial College London. (n.d.). *Vancouver style: Citing*. Library Services. [https://www.imperial.ac.uk/admin-services/library/learning-support/reference-management/vancouver-style/citing/](https://www.imperial.ac.uk/admin-services/library/learning-support/reference-management/vancouver-style/citing/)
- Luetjens, J., Mintrom, M., & 't Hart, P. (Eds.). (2019). *Successful public policy: Lessons from Australia and New Zealand*. ANU Press. [https://doi.org/10.22459/SPP.2019](https://doi.org/10.22459/SPP.2019)
- Modern Language Association. (2021). *In-text citations: An overview*. MLA Style Center. [https://style.mla.org/in-text-citations-overview/](https://style.mla.org/in-text-citations-overview/)
- Pawson, H., & Milligan, V. (2024). Towards a national housing policy for the 2020s. In R. Freestone, B. Randolph, & W. Steele (Eds.), *Australian urban policy: Prospects and pathways* (pp. 349–368). ANU Press. [https://doi.org/10.22459/AUP.2024.18](https://doi.org/10.22459/AUP.2024.18)
- Pawson, H., Milligan, V., & Yates, J. (2020). *Housing policy in Australia: A case for system reform*. Palgrave Macmillan. [https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0780-9](https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0780-9)
- Pawson, H., Milligan, V., & Yates, J. (2025). *Housing policy in Australia: A case for system reform* (2nd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. [https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-95-0864-8](https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-95-0864-8)
- University of Chicago Press. (n.d.). *Author-date: Sample citations*. The Chicago Manual of Style Online. Retrieved September 24, 2026, from [https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-2.html](https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-2.html)
- University of Leeds Library. (n.d.-a). *Before you start reading*. Academic skills. [https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/1401/academic-skills/207/reading](https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/1401/academic-skills/207/reading)
- University of Leeds Library. (n.d.-b). *Reading strategies*. Academic skills. [https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/1401/academic-skills/207/reading/2](https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/1401/academic-skills/207/reading/2)
- University of Reading. (2026, September 4). *Managing academic reading*. Reading and making notes. [https://libguides.reading.ac.uk/reading/reading](https://libguides.reading.ac.uk/reading/reading)
- University of Sydney. (2026, June 2). *Note taking*. Study skills. [https://www.sydney.edu.au/students/study-skills/reading/note-taking.html](https://www.sydney.edu.au/students/study-skills/reading/note-taking.html)
- University of the West of Scotland Library. (n.d.-a). *Cite Them Right Harvard referencing examples*. Referencing at UWS. [https://uws-uk.libguides.com/c.php?g=727692&p=5297185](https://uws-uk.libguides.com/c.php?g=727692&p=5297185)
- University of the West of Scotland Library. (n.d.-b). *In-text citations*. Referencing at UWS. [https://uws-uk.libguides.com/c.php?g=727692&p=5297086](https://uws-uk.libguides.com/c.php?g=727692&p=5297086)
- UNSW Sydney. (n.d.). *Reading, research & note taking*. Academic skills toolkit. [https://www.unsw.edu.au/student/managing-your-studies/academic-skills-support/toolkit/note-taking](https://www.unsw.edu.au/student/managing-your-studies/academic-skills-support/toolkit/note-taking)