How to Cite Psychology 6th Edition by Ciccarelli and White
You are probably writing a paper and need to get this citation right. The textbook was written by Saundra K. Ciccarelli and J. Noland White, published by Pearson. The 6th edition came out in 2014. Most people using this today are submitting APA style papers, so I will walk through that format first and then cover the other common styles. In APA 7th edition format, the reference looks like this: Ciccarelli, S. K., & White, J. N. (2014). Psychology (6th ed.). Pearson. If you are citing a specific page or section, you would add an in-text citation like this: (Ciccarelli & White, 2014, p. 247). That is the straightforward part. The complications show up when you are dealing with online versions or different editions of the book.
I ran into a real problem last semester when a professor wanted the 5th edition cited even though the student had the 6th. The publication years are different, and the ISBN numbers changed. You cannot just swap the year and assume everything else works. I had to track down the exact publisher location for the 5th edition — it was Boston, MA — while the 6th edition just says Pearson without a city. That is an APA 6th edition thing that disappeared in APA 7th. If your instructor is still using older guidelines, make sure you include the city. Otherwise, leave it out. Another issue I see constantly is students citing theebook version and forgetting to add a DOI or URL. If you pulled this from a platform like MyPsychLab or Pearson's website, you should include the access date and the web address. It is not required for print books, but it matters when the source is digital-only.
Alternative Citation Formats
MLA format: Ciccarelli, Saundra K., and J. Noland White. Psychology. 6th ed., Pearson, 2014. Chicago style (notes and bibliography): Ciccarelli, Saundra K., and J. Noland White. Psychology. 6th edition. Pearson, 2014. BibTeX entry for LaTeX users:
Get the Full Details
@book{ciccarelli2014psychology, title={Psychology}, author={Ciccarelli, Saundra K and White, J Noland}, year={2014}, edition={6th}, publisher={Pearson}}
Common Mistakes I See Students Make
People regularly mess up the ampersand. In APA parenthetical citations, use &. In narrative citations where the names are part of the sentence, use "and." This is one of those tiny details that professors actually notice and deduct points for. Another frequent error is capitalizing the title incorrectly. The book title should be sentence case, meaning only the first word and proper nouns get capitalized. So it is Psychology, not Psychology or PSYCHOLOGY. This applies to the reference list entry, not the in-text citation. Students also frequently include the ISBN number. It is not required in APA, MLA, or Chicago. Include it only if your professor explicitly asks for it or if your institution uses a style guide that mandates it.
When This Citation Approach Fails
The formats above assume you are citing the complete textbook. If you are citing a specific chapter written by a different author within this textbook, the citation changes entirely. For example, if Chapter 3 was written by a contributor and you want to cite only that chapter, you need the chapter author, the chapter title, and then indicate that it appears in Ciccarelli and White's edited volume. This is a completely different citation structure and most students do not handle it correctly. Also, if you are using a later reprint or an international edition, the publication details may differ. The 6th edition has gone through multiple printings, and some have slightly different copyright pages. When in doubt, check the actual copyright page of the physical or digital copy you used, not just the front matter. I had a student once who got cited incorrectly because the library copy she used had a 2013 copyright date even though it was labeled the 6th edition. The actual publication year on the copyright page was 2013, so her reference should have listed 2013, not 2014. The cover said one thing and the fine print said another. If your institution requires a style other than the three I covered here, or if you need to cite a specific chapter or section from the book, let me know what you are working with and I can walk you through it.
