How do I cite a book that has been transcribed online in APA?

Question

I'm trying to cite a "book" in APA format. I say "book" because I was not able to check out a hard copy from my library. Instead, I found a version that had been transcribed online. The website provides the following citation information:

RECORD: Darwin, C. R. 1868. The variation of animals and plants under domestication. London: John Murray. First edition, first issue. Volume 1.

REVISION HISTORY: Scanned by Kees Rookmaaker, transcribed (double key) by AEL Data, corrections by John van Wyhe 2.2006. Proofread and corrected by Sue Asscher 6.2008. RN6

Although this provides useful information, I'm not sure if I need to include all of it. Furthermore, I am unsure of how to consolidate it into one APA-approved citation for my reference list.

Answer 1

Chapters 6 and 7 of Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition covers citations and referencing in the APA format.

As @Robin pointed out, EasyBib gives a rundown of how you reference a digitised book (an e-book) at http://www.easybib.com/guides/citation-guides/apa-format/e-book.

Structure:

Author, F.M. (Year of Publication). Title of Work [E-reader Version]. Retrieved from http://xxxxx or doi:xxxxx

Example:

Stoker, B. (2000). Dracula [Kindle HDX version]. Retrieved from http://www.overdrive.com/

Notice the title of the book is in italics

Searching for the version you are talking about, it seems that you are talking about http://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/published/1868_Variation_F877/1868_Variation_F877.2.html which is an HTML version rather than an e-book version so therefore, you would reference this work as [HTML version].

You can either generate the reference manually, or you can get help through citation generators.

Google is helpful with this too. If you do a Google Scholar search for the book or article you want to reference, you can obtain an APA reference by clicking on the image of a set of quotation marks

When you click on the quotation marks you get MLA, APA, Chicago, Harvard and Vancouver format references with export options for BibTeX, EndNote, RefMan, and RefWorks.

Google Scholar here has given a reference for vol.2 but there is a curious reference to O. Judd which I would omit as searching through the digitised version there is nothing in the book about him.

This leaves the reference standing as:

Darwin, C. (1868). The variation of animals and plants under domestication (Vol. 2).

To correctly cite the HTML version you are referring to, you should substitute (Vol. 2) with (Vol.1) and add [HTML Version] along with the retrieval link, making the reference:

Darwin, C. (1868). The variation of animals and plants under domestication (Vol. 1) [HTML Version]. Retrieved from http://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/published/1868_Variation_F877/1868_Variation_F877.2.html

As for a scanned version of the book you are referring to which is available from Archive.org, this one would be referenced with

Darwin, C. (1868). The variation of animals and plants under domestication (Vol. 1) [Digitised Version]. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/variationofanima01darw

If you managed to find a hardcopy, you would reference it with

Darwin, C. (1868). The variation of animals and plants under domestication (Vol. 1). New York: D. Appleton and Company

Answer 2

Author, F.M. (Year of Publication). Title of work. Retrieved from http://xxxxx or doi:xxxxx

So for your example:

Darwin, C.R. (1868). The variation of animals and plants under domestication. Retrieved from https://link.com

Source: http://www.easybib.com/guides/citation-guides/apa-format/e-book/