On this page
Updated . Example details checked against Crossref, doi:10.1037/0000120-016 (also the APA Style sample reference for a chapter).
The APA format
Pattern
Last name, A. A. (Year). Title of chapter. In A. Editor & B. Editor (Eds.), Title of book (pp. #–#). Publisher. https://doi.org/xx
- Editors with initials first, then last name, followed by (Ed.) or (Eds.).
- Both titles in sentence case; only the book title is italic.
- Pages in parentheses after the book title, with “pp.”
- Edition goes in the same parentheses as the pages: (2nd ed., pp. 345–359).
This example is APA Style’s own sample reference for a chapter in an edited book.
A real example
Reference entry
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 citation
(Aron et al., 2019, p. 350)
When details are missing
- No DOI: end with the publisher.
- An authored book with chapters: cite the whole book, and give the chapter in the citation: (Walker, 2017, Chapter 3).
Common mistakes
- Editors written last name first. In the “In” part, editors are initials first: In R. F. Subotnik.
- Leaving out “pp.” Chapter pages in a reference take “pp.”: (pp. 345–359).
Or let Format do it.
Choose Chapter or work in an anthology, or paste the chapter’s DOI, and Format asks for the chapter, the book, the editors and the pages. Format writes the References entry and the in-text citation in APA 7, exactly as shown above, and builds the References page when you export to Word or PDF. MLA and APA are free.
Questions
Do I cite the chapter or the book?
The chapter, when it has its own author. Cite the book when one author wrote all of it.
How do I cite two chapters from one book?
Give each chapter its own reference entry.
More citation guides
The same source in other styles
Similar sources in APA
Every source kind is on the APA page, and every style is on How to cite.