How to Cite a Book Chapter in Any Style

How to cite a book chapter: collect the chapter author, chapter title, editors, book title, edition, publisher, year, page range and DOI, then arrange them in your style's order. The chapter title is the item you cite and the book is where it appears, so every style shows both, with the chapter in plain or quoted text and the book in italics. Pick your style in the generator below.

Cite a book chapter in your style

The form opens on the book chapter type with APA 7 selected; change the style menu to MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE or AMA and the preview reformats the same data instantly. A chapter DOI fills most fields. Editors are the field that lookups miss most often, so check the book's title page.

Enter the source details: Book chapter

Fields marked with * are needed for a complete reference. Check every field: registry data can differ from what the style guide prints.

Authors

Leave the author empty when a page has no named author. Use Organisation for a company, agency or channel.

Lookups copy the capitalisation the publisher uses. APA writes article and book titles in sentence case, and AMA does the same for article titles: capitalise only the first word, the first word after a colon and proper nouns.

Editors
    Publication date

    For example 207-217, or an article number such as e0318239.

    Preview (APA 7th)

    Fill in the title to see the formatted reference.

    Your bibliography0 sources

    Saved on this device only. Nothing is stored on our servers.

    No sources yet. Cite a DOI, URL or ISBN, or enter a source manually, and it appears here.

    A citation tool formats references; it does not check that you quoted or paraphrased the source correctly. Citation styles and locales from the Citation Style Language project (citationstyles.org), licensed CC BY-SA 3.0, used unmodified; a few documented corrections are applied to the output. Formatting by citeproc-js (CPAL 1.0 or AGPL 1.0). Source code.

    The pattern at a glance

    • APA 7Author, A. (Year). Chapter title. In E. Editor (Ed.), Book title (pp. x-y). Publisher. DOI
    • MLA 9Last, First. "Chapter Title." Book Title, edited by First Last, Publisher, Year, pp. x-y.
    • Chicago (notes-bibliography)Last, First. "Chapter Title." In Book Title, edited by First Last. Publisher, Year.
    • Harvard (Cite Them Right)Surname, I. (Year) 'Chapter title', in I. Editor (ed.) Book title. Place: Publisher, pp. x-y.

    Collect these nine details once

    Every citation style asks for the same raw data about a chapter; only the order and punctuation change. If you collect the details once, you can switch styles without going back to the book: chapter authors, chapter title, editors of the book, book title, edition, publisher, place (only Harvard and older Chicago use it), year and the chapter's page range, plus the DOI if the chapter has its own.

    The table of contents gives the page range and often the chapter authors. The title page gives the editors and the edition. The copyright page gives the year and the publisher. For ebook chapters, the publisher's chapter landing page lists the DOI and usually the pages.

    Should you cite the chapter or the whole book?

    Cite the chapter when the book is an edited collection, meaning that different authors wrote different chapters. Your reader then sees who wrote the ideas you used and where to find them.

    When a single author or team wrote the whole book, most styles prefer a citation of the book with page numbers in the in-text citation. APA states this directly for authored books; MLA and Chicago allow a chapter-level citation if the chapter title matters to your argument.

    Textbooks are the grey zone. An introductory textbook with one author team is an authored book even though each chapter has a title. A reader of collected essays is an edited book even if it is used as a textbook.

    Where the styles differ

    • Editor names: APA writes initials first after "In"; MLA and Chicago write "edited by" with full names; Harvard writes "in" plus initials and (ed.) or (eds).
    • Chapter title marks: plain text in APA, double quotation marks in MLA and Chicago, single quotation marks in Harvard (Cite Them Right).
    • Pages: APA, MLA and Harvard print the range in the reference; the Chicago 18th style file leaves it out of the bibliography and uses pages in the notes.
    • Year position: after the author in APA and Harvard, near the end in MLA and Chicago notes-bibliography.

    Field by field: the chapter form

    One form serves all styles. This is what to enter in each field.

    FieldWhat to enterWhere to find it
    Chapter authorsAuthors of the chapter, not the editors.Chapter's first page.
    Chapter titleFull title with subtitle.Chapter's first page.
    EditorsEditors of the whole book.Title page.
    Book titleTitle of the volume.Title page.
    EditionOnly for second and later editions.Title page.
    Publisher and placePublisher; place is used by Harvard and Chicago 17th.Title page.
    YearCopyright year.Copyright page.
    Pages and DOIChapter page range; chapter DOI.Contents page; chapter landing page.

    One chapter, four styles: real examples

    Two real handbook chapters, each formatted by the generator's engine in APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 notes-bibliography and Harvard (Cite Them Right). Compare how the same facts move around.

    Three authors, two editors (Routledge handbook)

    APA 7th: Reference entry

    O’Halloran, K. L., Tan, S., & Smith, B. A. (2016). Multimodal approaches to English for academic purposes. In K. Hyland & P. Shaw (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of English for academic purposes (pp. 256–269). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315657455-24

    In-text citation: (O’Halloran et al., 2016)

    MLA 9th: Reference entry

    O’Halloran, Kay L., et al. “Multimodal Approaches to English for Academic Purposes.” The Routledge Handbook of English for Academic Purposes, edited by Ken Hyland and Philip Shaw, Routledge, 2016, pp. 256–69, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315657455-24.

    In-text citation: (O’Halloran et al.)

    Chicago 18th (notes and bibliography): Reference entry

    O’Halloran, Kay L., Sabine Tan, and Bradley A. Smith. “Multimodal Approaches to English for Academic Purposes.” In The Routledge Handbook of English for Academic Purposes, edited by Ken Hyland and Philip Shaw. Routledge, 2016. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315657455-24.

    First footnote: Kay L. O’Halloran et al., “Multimodal Approaches to English for Academic Purposes,” in The Routledge Handbook of English for Academic Purposes, ed. Ken Hyland and Philip Shaw (Routledge, 2016), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315657455-24.

    Harvard (Cite Them Right 12th ed.): Reference entry

    O’Halloran, K.L., Tan, S. and Smith, B.A. (2016) ‘Multimodal approaches to English for academic purposes’, in K. Hyland and P. Shaw (eds) The Routledge handbook of English for academic purposes. Routledge, pp. 256–269. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315657455-24.

    In-text citation: (O’Halloran, Tan and Smith, 2016)

    APA lists all three authors and writes the editors as K. Hyland & P. Shaw (Eds.). MLA keeps only the first author plus et al. The Harvard style file names all three authors in the in-text citation and keeps "et al." for four or more, while APA already shortens three authors to O'Halloran et al.

    Checked against DOI record (checked on 25 October 2026). Crossref chapter record: three authors, pages 256-269, 2016.

    One author, one editor, third edition (Cambridge handbook)

    APA 7th: Reference entry

    Engeström, Y. (2022). Learning in activity. In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (3rd ed., pp. 134–155). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108888295.009

    In-text citation: (Engeström, 2022)

    MLA 9th: Reference entry

    Engeström, Yrjö. “Learning in Activity.” The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences, edited by R. Keith Sawyer, 3rd ed., Cambridge University Press, 2022, pp. 134–55, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108888295.009.

    In-text citation: (Engeström)

    Chicago 18th (notes and bibliography): Reference entry

    Engeström, Yrjö. “Learning in Activity.” In The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences, 3rd ed., edited by R. Keith Sawyer. Cambridge University Press, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108888295.009.

    First footnote: Yrjö Engeström, “Learning in Activity,” in The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences, 3rd ed., ed. R. Keith Sawyer (Cambridge University Press, 2022), https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108888295.009.

    Harvard (Cite Them Right 12th ed.): Reference entry

    Engeström, Y. (2022) ‘Learning in activity’, in R.K. Sawyer (ed.) The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences. 3rd edn. Cambridge University Press, pp. 134–155. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108888295.009.

    In-text citation: (Engeström, 2022)

    The edition appears in every style but in different places: inside the page parentheses in APA, after the editor in MLA, before the editor in Chicago, and after the book title in Harvard. The author's name keeps its Finnish letters in all four.

    Checked against DOI record (checked on 25 October 2026). Crossref chapter record: pages 134-155, 2022.

    Formatted by the same citation engine that runs the generator above (citeproc-js with the official CSL style file). Italics follow the style.

    In-text citations for chapters by style

    Whatever the style, the in-text citation names the chapter author, never the book editor.

    • APA 7: (Engeström, 2022, p. 140)
    • MLA 9: (Engeström 140)
    • Chicago notes: Footnote: Yrjö Engeström, "Learning in Activity," in The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences, 3rd ed., ed. R. Keith Sawyer (Cambridge University Press, 2022), 140.
    • Harvard: (Engeström, 2022, p. 140)
    • IEEE and AMA: A number in square brackets [4] or a superscript number, assigned in order of first citation.

    Mistakes people make citing chapters

    • Citing the editor as author. The editors compiled the book; the chapter author wrote the text you use.
    • Only the book in the reference list. If you used one chapter of an edited book, cite that chapter so readers know whose argument it is.
    • Missing page range. Handbooks run to hundreds of pages; the range locates the chapter.
    • Mixing marks between styles. Double quotation marks in a Harvard list or italic chapter titles in APA are signs of a copy from another style.

    Book chapter citation FAQ

    How do I cite a book chapter with an editor?

    Give the chapter author and title first, then the book title with its editors, then the publication details and the chapter's page range. The exact wording (In, edited by, ed.) depends on your style.

    How do I cite two chapters from the same book?

    Write a separate reference for each chapter. Some styles also let you cite the whole book once and point to chapters in short form, but separate chapter entries are clearest.

    What if the chapter has no separate author?

    Then the book is probably authored, not edited. Cite the book and use page or chapter numbers in your in-text citation.

    Which style should I use?

    The one your course, department or journal requires. If none is given, APA is common in social sciences, MLA in languages and literature, and Chicago in history.

    Style guides used on this page

    Rules on this page were checked against these pages on 25 October 2026.

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