Lab Manual Citation Generator
Cite a lab manual, whether a press published it or your department handed it out. Say which it is, enter the author or department, title, edition and year, and get the APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 and ACS entries — with the part you used in the in-text citation. Free, no sign-up.
Lab manual details
One per line, as First Last or Last, First. Leave empty if the manual names no author — a department then stands in as the author.
Type it in sentence case: capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon and proper nouns. MLA, Chicago and ACS get title case automatically.
A number such as 11, or words such as Revised.
The year on the copyright line or cover. For a school year such as 2025–2026, use the later year.
APA lets you name the part in the in-text citation. MLA and Chicago cite pages, so name the experiment in your sentence.
Chicago shortens a long title to its key words, by hand. Leave blank for a suggestion.
Your citations
Enter the manual's title to see your citations.
How to Use the Lab Manual Citation Generator
- 1. Decide what kind of manual it is. Open the front matter. A copyright page that names a press, an edition and an ISBN means a published manual. A manual written by your department or instructor, with no publisher, is a handout.
- 2. Enter the author, title and edition. Type the title in sentence case. Use the authors on the cover; with none, leave the box empty and a department stands in as the author.
- 3. Add the publisher, or the department and university. For a manual on a course site such as Canvas, add the site and its login page.
- 4. Add the page or the experiment you used. The in-text citations will carry it.
- 5. Copy the style you need. Each entry copies with its italics intact.
Published Manual or Departmental Handout?
A manual with a publisher and an ISBN is a book. A manual your department wrote and never published is unpublished course material. The test APA applies to every classroom source is whether your readers can retrieve it: if they can open the file or the book, write a reference entry; if they cannot, such as a journal editor reading your manuscript, cite it in the text as a personal communication, or better, cite the published method the manual was adapted from. Do not assume your instructor wrote a handout unless the manual says so.
| Style | Published manual | Departmental manual |
|---|---|---|
| APA 7 | A book: Title (11th ed.). Publisher. | Title [Unpublished lab manual]. University. The department is the author when no person is named. |
| MLA 9 | A book with the edition: Title. 11th ed., Publisher, Year. | Begins with the title when no author is known; Department, University, Year. |
| Chicago 18 | A book; no place of publication (§14.30) | “Title” (unpublished lab manual, Department, University, Year); usually a note only (§14.114) |
| ACS | Book template: Authors; Title, ed.; Publisher, Year. | The same template with the university as publisher |
APA 7 has no lab-manual example. A published manual follows the book pattern, and an unpublished one adds a bracketed description after the italic title; when the department is the author, the university alone is the publisher. An in-text citation can name the part you used — (Beran & Lassiter, 2022, Experiment 3) — which APA allows you to customize. MLA 9 puts a stand-alone handout's title in italics. Chicago 18 treats a published manual as a book and a departmental one as an unpublished manuscript, with the title in quotation marks, the description and the year in parentheses in a note, and an indication of the file format at the end; Chicago usually leaves such a source out of the bibliography when nobody else can get it. ACS has no lab-manual example either; the generator applies its book template. ACS cites by number in the text, so no in-text citation is produced.
Lab Manual Citation Examples
J. A. Beran and Mark Lassiter's Laboratory Manual for Principles of General Chemistry, 11th edition, published by Wiley in 2022, citing page 12 of Experiment 3.
APA 7th edition
Reference list:
Beran, J. A., & Lassiter, M. (2022). Laboratory manual for principles of general chemistry (11th ed.). Wiley.
In-text (parenthetical):
(Beran & Lassiter, 2022, Experiment 3, p. 12)
In-text (narrative):
Beran and Lassiter (2022, Experiment 3, p. 12)
MLA 9th edition
Works Cited:
Beran, J. A., and Mark Lassiter. Laboratory Manual for Principles of General Chemistry. 11th ed., Wiley, 2022.
In-text citation:
(Beran and Lassiter 12)
Chicago 18th edition (notes and bibliography)
Footnote:
J. A. Beran and Mark Lassiter, Laboratory Manual for Principles of General Chemistry, 11th ed. (Wiley, 2022), 12.
Shortened note:
Beran and Lassiter, Laboratory Manual, 12.
Bibliography:
Beran, J. A., and Mark Lassiter. Laboratory Manual for Principles of General Chemistry. 11th ed. Wiley, 2022.
ACS
Reference list:
Beran, J. A.; Lassiter, M. Laboratory Manual for Principles of General Chemistry, 11th ed.; Wiley, 2022.
A department's own manual, with no named author. The department and university here are illustrative, not a real course.
Departmental manual
APA 7 reference:
Department of Chemistry. (2025). General chemistry I laboratory manual [Unpublished lab manual]. Example University.
APA 7 in-text:
(Department of Chemistry, 2025, p. 12)
MLA 9 Works Cited:
General Chemistry I Laboratory Manual. Department of Chemistry, Example University, 2025.
MLA 9 in-text:
(General Chemistry I Laboratory Manual 12)
Chicago footnote:
“General Chemistry I Laboratory Manual” (unpublished lab manual, Department of Chemistry, Example University, 2025), 12, PDF.
Chicago shortened note:
“General Chemistry I,” 12.
Chicago bibliography:
“General Chemistry I Laboratory Manual.” Unpublished lab manual, Department of Chemistry, Example University, 2025. PDF.
ACS:
Department of Chemistry. General Chemistry I Laboratory Manual; Example University, 2025.
When a Field Is Missing
- No author. Leave the author box empty. APA and ACS use the department as the author; MLA and Chicago start with the title.
- No year. APA uses n.d. MLA, Chicago and ACS leave it out. The year on a cover or copyright line is usually the year of issue.
- No publisher on a printed manual. It is a departmental manual. Do not invent a publisher.
- A procedure taken from a paper or a protocol website. Cite that source, not the manual.
Common Mistakes
- Citing the textbook instead of its lab manual. A manual that accompanies a textbook has its own title and authors.
- Making your instructor the author by default. List them only if they wrote the manual.
- Citing the whole manual when you used one experiment. Keep one reference-list entry and name the part in the text.
- Italics on a departmental title in Chicago. An unpublished work's title takes quotation marks in Chicago, and italics in APA, MLA and ACS.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do I cite a lab manual in APA 7?
- A published manual is cited as a book: Beran, J. A., & Lassiter, M. (2022). Laboratory manual for principles of general chemistry (11th ed.). Wiley. In text: (Beran & Lassiter, 2022). A department's own manual adds a bracketed description: Title [Unpublished lab manual]. University. In text, you can name the part you used, such as (Beran & Lassiter, 2022, Experiment 3).
- How do I cite a lab manual in MLA 9?
- Treat a published manual as a book, with the edition: Beran, J. A., and Mark Lassiter. Laboratory Manual for Principles of General Chemistry. 11th ed., Wiley, 2022. In text: (Beran and Lassiter 12) with a page number. For a departmental manual with no named author, start with the title and give the department and university as the publisher.
- How do I cite a lab manual my professor wrote?
- Cite it as the departmental manual. If the manual names your professor as the author, they are the author. If it names no one, the department is the author in APA and the entry starts with the title in MLA. If readers cannot open the file, such as an outside reader of your thesis, APA treats it as a personal communication and asks you to cite the published method instead.
- How do I cite a lab manual in ACS style?
- ACS has no lab-manual example, so use its book template: authors as Surname, Initials separated by semicolons, the title in italics, the edition, then the publisher and year: Beran, J. A.; Lassiter, M. Laboratory Manual for Principles of General Chemistry, 11th ed.; Wiley, 2022. ACS cites by number in the text.
- Do I have to cite the lab manual in my lab report?
- Usually yes, when you followed its procedure or quote it, and many instructors expect it. Check your assignment: some courses give a standard line to use. If you changed the procedure, say so in your methods section and still cite the source of the original.
- How do I cite one experiment in a lab manual?
- Keep one entry for the whole manual and cite the part in the text. APA allows a named part, as in (Beran & Lassiter, 2022, Experiment 3). MLA and Chicago cite page numbers, so give the page and name the experiment in your sentence.