How to cite a book chapter in MLA 9

Use this when each chapter or essay has its own author and the book has an editor. In MLA the chapter is the source and the book is the container.

Works Cited format

Last, First. "Title of the Chapter." Title of the Book, edited by First Last, Publisher, Year, pp. xx–xx.

Nakamura, Hana. “Learning from Failure in Group Projects.” Collaboration in Higher Education, edited by Dara Osei and Paul Bright, Westbrook UP, 2022, pp. 88–104.

• Chapter author. The person who wrote the chapter, last name first.
• Chapter title. In quotation marks.
• Book title. In italics, followed by the editors after “edited by.”
• Publisher and year. After the editors. MLA abbreviates “University Press” to “UP”.
• Pages. For a chapter inside another work, the page range goes at the end of the first container.

A chapter read online

If you read it through an online platform, add the platform as a second container, in italics, then the location. A DOI for a chapter in an anthology goes last, as a full link starting with https://doi.org/.

Osei, Dara. “Reading Maps in the Early Modern Port.” The Harbor Companion to Maritime Studies, edited by Paul Bright et al., Northfield UP, 2019. Northfield Reference Online, https://doi.org/10.0000/example.2019.034.

A chapter in a book by one author

When one person wrote the whole book, MLA’s guidance is to create an entry only for the book. Name the chapter in your text if it matters.

In-text citation

Use the chapter author’s last name and the page: (Nakamura 90). The citation keys to the first element of the entry, which is the chapter author, not the editors.

Check before you submit

• Don’t list the editors as authors of the chapter.
• Several editors. With three or more editors, MLA names the first and adds “et al.” This comes from the MLA Handbook, so check it for details.
• For APA, see citing a book chapter in APA 7.