ISBN to CSE Citation Converter

What is an ISBN?

An ISBN (International Standard Book Number) identifies one specific edition and format of a published book. ISBN-13 is the current standard – 13 digits beginning with 978 or 979 – while older books also carry a 10-digit ISBN-10. Both work here, with or without hyphens. You will find the number above the barcode on the back cover or on the copyright page behind the title page. When you paste an ISBN into CiteTools, we look the book up in Google Books, then in Open Library, and pull the fields a book citation needs: authors or editors, full title and subtitle, publisher, publication year, and edition. That is the tedious part of citing a book done for you; the formatter then applies the punctuation, capitalization, and author-name rules of the style you select.

How the ISBN to CSE conversion works

1. Find the ISBN above the barcode or on the copyright page and paste it in – hyphens optional.
2. CiteTools looks the book up in Google Books, then in Open Library.
3. Copy the finished book citation with publisher, year, and edition included.

Example input:

9780262033848

About CSE Style

Council of Science Editors, name-year system - used in biology, geology, and other natural sciences.

CSE style, from The CSE Manual: Scientific Style and Format, 9th edition, is used across biology, geology, and the other natural sciences. CiteTools writes the name-year system. A reference gives the authors as surname and initials, then the year, the title in sentence case, and the abbreviated journal name. Volume(issue):pages follow, and the DOI closes the reference as an https://doi.org address. The list runs in alphabetical order, and the in-text citation is the surname and the year in parentheses. CiteTools lists up to five authors and cuts a longer list to the first author and et al.

Frequently asked questions