Multivolume Work Citation Generator

Your citations

Enter the work's title to see your citations.

How to Use the Multivolume Work Citation Generator

1. 1. Choose what you are citing. Pick The whole set if you used several volumes or want to refer to the work at large. Pick One volume if you used a single volume throughout.
2. 2. Enter the work. Type the author (or tick the box if the people are editors), the title of the whole work in sentence case, and the edition if there is one. For one volume, add its number, and its own title if it has one.
3. 3. Add the years and publisher. A set that came out over several years takes a first and a last year. A single volume takes its own year.
4. 4. Add a volume and page if you quote. The in-text citations and the Chicago notes will carry them.
5. 5. Copy the style you need. Each entry copies with its italics intact.

Whole Set or One Volume?

The first decision is what the reader will find on the shelf. If you used several volumes, cite the set once and give the volume in each in-text citation. If you used one volume, cite that volume, with its number. The three styles write the same two choices differently.

The tool follows the examples in each style's manual as library guides reproduce them. Where a style leaves a choice open, such as which title a Chicago shortened note should use for a titled volume, the note under the results says so.

Multivolume Work Citation Examples

Shelby Foote's three-volume The Civil War: A Narrative, cited as a whole set and quoted from volume 2. The page number is illustrative.

Without a volume or a page, the in-text citations are just the author, and the year range in APA:

Robert Caro's The Years of Lyndon Johnson, citing only volume 3, which has its own title.

A volume that is only numbered, with a Roman numeral turned into an Arabic one and a page range:

An edited reference set. Tick the box that says the people are editors, and the tool adds (Eds.) in APA, editors in MLA and eds. in Chicago.

Years, Volumes and Page Numbers

• Year ranges. A set published over several years is dated with the first and last year. APA and MLA print both years in full; Chicago shortens the second when it can, as it does for page ranges, so 1958–1974 becomes 1958–74 and 1990–2015 stays whole.
• Which count to print. APA lists the volumes you used, so a partial set reads (Vols. 2–3). MLA and Chicago give the total number of volumes in the set. Use the Volumes you used box for the APA range.
• Roman numerals. Type a volume as III and it is printed as 3. A lettered volume such as C stays a letter.
• Edition. Type 2 and it becomes 2nd ed., placed with the volume in APA — (2nd ed., Vols. 1–4) — and before the publisher in MLA.
• Publishers. Business words such as Inc. are dropped, and MLA abbreviates university presses: U of Pennsylvania P.

Common Mistakes

• Giving every volume its own entry when you cite the set. One entry for the set, with the volume in each in-text citation, is shorter, and it is the approach the style guides' set examples take.
• Leaving the volume out of the in-text citation. A page number means nothing until the reader knows which volume it is in.
• Printing the number of volumes you used in MLA. MLA wants the total number in the set.
• Writing Vol. for several volumes. It is Vol. for one and Vols. for more than one.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I cite a multivolume work in APA 7?

Put Vols. and the range in parentheses after the italic title, and date a set that came out over several years with a range: Foote, S. (1958–1974). The Civil War: A narrative (Vols. 1–3). Random House. In text, cite the author and the year range: (Foote, 1958–1974). Use Vol. for a single volume, as in (Vol. 2).

How do I cite just one volume of a multivolume work?

Give the volume number after the title: (Vol. 2) in APA, vol. 2 in MLA, and vol. 2 in a Chicago note. If you used only that volume, the bibliography entry lists only that volume. If it has its own title, cite it under that title and name the set, as in Vol. 3 of The Years of Lyndon Johnson.

How do I write the volume and page in an MLA in-text citation?

Separate them with a colon and a space: (Foote 2: 321). If you cite only one volume of the set and the Works Cited entry names that volume, the volume number is not needed in text and the page alone is enough: (Foote 321).

What if each volume has its own title?

APA puts the number and the volume's title inside the italic title: The years of Lyndon Johnson: Vol. 3. Master of the Senate. MLA lets you cite the volume as a book under its own title. This tool also names the set at the end — Vol. 3 of The Years of Lyndon Johnson — so readers can find it; delete that if your instructor does not want it. In Chicago, the bibliography entry begins with the volume's title and names the set after Vol. 3 of; the note begins with the set's title, then vol. 3, then the volume's title.

How do I cite a multivolume work in Chicago style?

For a set, put the volume count after the title: Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative, 3 vols. (Random House, 1958–74). To point to a place in it, add the volume and page in one locator after the parenthesis: 2:321. Chicago 18 no longer asks for a city of publication on books published after 1900, so the publisher is enough.

Should I cite the set or each volume separately?

Cite the set once if you use more than one volume, and say which volume in each in-text citation. Cite a single volume on its own if it is the only one you used. Your instructor may prefer each volume listed on its own when the volumes have different authors, titles and years.