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An edited book collects chapters by different authors under one or more editors. The person you are quoting is the chapter author, so the chapter author leads the citation and the editors are credited after the word "In". Getting this the wrong way round is the most common error with this source type.
What to Collect
- Chapter author(s) and chapter title
- Book editor(s) and book title
- Edition, if not the first
- Page range of the chapter
- Publisher and year (and city, for Harvard and IEEE)
- DOI, if the chapter or book has one
The worked example is a chapter that APA itself uses as a model on its edited book chapter page: "Culinary Arts: Talent and Their Development" by Laurent Aron, Marion Botella and Todd Lubart, in The Psychology of High Performance, edited by Rena Subotnik, Paula Olszewski-Kubilius and Frank Worrell (American Psychological Association, 2019), pages 345 to 359.
Quick Reference by Major Style
APA (7th Edition)
Author, A. A. (Year). Title of chapter. In E. E. Editor (Ed.), Title of book (pp. xx–xx). Publisher. DOI
Aron, L., Botella, M., & Lubart, T. (2019). Culinary arts: Talent and their development. In R. F. Subotnik, P. Olszewski-Kubilius, & F. C. Worrell (Eds.), The psychology of high performance: Developing human potential into domain-specific talent (pp. 345–359). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000120-016
In-text: (Aron et al., 2019)
The chapter title is plain text in sentence case. The book title is in italics. Editors' initials come before their surnames, the reverse of the author position. Use "(Ed.)" for one editor and "(Eds.)" for several.
MLA (9th Edition)
Author Last, First. "Title of Chapter." Title of Book, edited by First Last, Publisher, Year, pp. xx-xx.
Aron, Laurent, et al. "Culinary Arts: Talent and Their Development." The Psychology of High Performance: Developing Human Potential into Domain-Specific Talent, edited by Rena F. Subotnik et al., American Psychological Association, 2019, pp. 345-59.
In-text: (Aron et al. 350)
MLA uses "et al." for three or more authors and also for three or more editors. Page ranges drop the repeated hundreds digit (345-59).
Chicago (18th Edition)
The Chicago Manual's own example of a chapter, from its Citation Quick Guide:
Footnote:
- Kathleen Doyle, "The Queen Mary Psalter," in The Book by Design: The Remarkable Story of the World’s Greatest Invention, ed. P. J. M. Marks and Stephen Parkin (University of Chicago Press, 2023), 64.
Shortened note:
- Doyle, "Queen Mary Psalter," 65.
Bibliography:
Doyle, Kathleen. "The Queen Mary Psalter." In The Book by Design: The Remarkable Story of the World’s Greatest Invention, edited by P. J. M. Marks and Stephen Parkin. University of Chicago Press, 2023.
Author-date reference: Doyle, Kathleen. 2023. "The Queen Mary Psalter." In The Book by Design: The Remarkable Story of the World’s Greatest Invention, edited by P. J. M. Marks and Stephen Parkin. University of Chicago Press. In-text: (Doyle 2023, 64)
Two 18th edition changes apply here. The city of publication is gone, and the chapter's page range is no longer required in the bibliography entry. If your department still follows the 17th edition, keep the page range and the city of publication.
Harvard (Cite Them Right)
Surname, Initial. (Year) 'Title of chapter', in Surname, Initial. (ed.) Title of book. Place of publication: Publisher, pp. xx–xx.
Aron, L., Botella, M. and Lubart, T. (2019) 'Culinary arts: talent and their development', in Subotnik, R.F., Olszewski-Kubilius, P. and Worrell, F.C. (eds) The psychology of high performance: developing human potential into domain-specific talent. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, pp. 345–359.
In-text: (Aron, Botella and Lubart, 2019)
Harvard puts the chapter title in single quotation marks and uses "(ed.)" or "(eds)" after the editors' names.
IEEE
[1] J. K. Author, "Title of chapter in the book," in Title of Published Book, X. Editor, Ed., City, State (only U.S.), Country: Publisher, year, pp. xxx–xxx.
[1] L. Aron, M. Botella, and T. Lubart, "Culinary arts: Talent and their development," in The Psychology of High Performance: Developing Human Potential Into Domain-Specific Talent, R. F. Subotnik, P. Olszewski-Kubilius, and F. C. Worrell, Eds., Washington, DC, USA: Amer. Psychol. Assoc., 2019, pp. 345–359.
In-text: [1]
IEEE can also point to a chapter or section number before the pages, in the form "ch. x, sect. x, pp. xxx–xxx".
A Chapter in a Book by One Author
If one person wrote the whole book, the reference list entry is for the book. Show which chapter you used in the citation itself.
APA: (Kahneman, 2011, Chapter 3) MLA: (Kahneman, ch. 3) Chicago note: 1. Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011), chap. 3. IEEE: [1, Ch. 3]
Chicago is the exception. It permits a separate bibliography entry for a single chapter of an authored book when that chapter is the only part you used, in the same "In" format without editors.
Essays, Stories and Poems in an Anthology
An anthology piece follows the chapter pattern. For a work that was first published long before the anthology, APA adds the original year at the end of the reference and cites both years in the text:
Author, A. A. (2019). Title of essay. In E. E. Editor (Ed.), Title of anthology (pp. 12–30). Publisher. (Original work published 1946) In-text: (Author, 1946/2019)
MLA may add the original year after the title as an optional element. For poems specifically, see how to cite a poem.
Other Edge Cases
Introduction, foreword or afterword by a different writer. Put the writer of that part in the author position and use the generic label as the title: Foreword, Introduction, Afterword. APA: Writer, W. (Year). Foreword. In A. Author, Title of book (pp. ix–xii). Publisher.
No editor named. Leave the editor element out and go straight from "In" to the book title.
Multivolume works. Add the volume after the book title: APA "(Vol. 2, pp. 101–130)"; MLA "vol. 2,"; Chicago "vol. 2 of".
Chapter in an ebook without page numbers. Give the chapter number in place of pages, or leave the locator out in MLA.
Entry in an encyclopedia or dictionary. These have their own conventions. See how to cite a dictionary or encyclopedia entry.
Common Mistakes
- Putting the editor in the author position and citing (Subotnik et al., 2019) for words that Aron and colleagues wrote
- Italicizing the chapter title instead of the book title
- Leaving out the page range where the style requires it
- Inverting the editors' names in APA. Editors are written "R. F. Subotnik", not "Subotnik, R. F."
- Writing "Ed." for several editors. Use "Eds." in APA and IEEE and "(eds)" in Harvard.
- Citing the whole edited book in the reference list when you drew on a single chapter
Sources for These Formats
- APA Style, "Chapter in an Edited Book/Ebook References" (apastyle.apa.org)
- MLA Handbook, 9th ed., and the MLA Style Center's guidance on works in collections and cross-references (style.mla.org)
- The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th ed., Citation Quick Guide, "Chapter or Other Part of an Edited Book", and "What's New in the 18th Edition" (chicagomanualofstyle.org)
- Pears and Shields, Cite Them Right, Harvard section on chapters in edited books
- IEEE Reference Guide, version 3.28.2025, "Book With Chapter Title" and "Book With Editor(s)"
Full style rules: APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE.
