How to Cite a Book Chapter in APSA Style

To cite a book chapter in APSA style, put the chapter author first, the chapter title in quotation marks, then In, the italicized book title, the editors introduced by "eds.", the chapter's page range, and finally the place and publisher. The pattern looks like this:

Format:

Last Name, First Name. Year. "Title of Chapter." In Title of Book, eds. First Name Last Name and First Name Last Name, page range. City, ST: Publisher.

Worked example (from the APSA manual itself):

Halchin, L. Elaine. 2001. "And This Parent Went to Market: Education as Public Versus Private Good." In School Choice in the Real World, eds. Robert Maranto, Scott Milliman, Frederick Hess and April Gresham, 39–57. Boulder, CO: Westview.

In-text citation: (Halchin 2001) or, with a page reference, (Halchin 2001, 45)

The rest of this guide covers where each element comes from, the special cases (multiple editors, editions, ebooks, no date, translated chapters), and the places where APSA quietly differs from the Chicago style it is built on.

The Official APSA Book Chapter Format

The governing document is the American Political Science Association's Style Manual for Political Science, 2nd edition (2018, revised July 2020), which is available free on the APSA website. The manual is built on the 17th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style and uses Chicago's author-date system: a short parenthetical citation in the text points to a full entry in an alphabetized reference list. Throughout, the APSA manual keys each rule to the Chicago paragraph it comes from, so the chapter rule below carries Chicago's number 14.106.

The rule: when you reference a specific chapter, the title you cite is the chapter's title, enclosed in quotation marks, followed by In and the italicized title of the book. The chapter's page numbers follow the book title, preceded by a comma. Element by element:

1. Chapter author, first name inverted. Only the first author's name is reversed (Halchin, L. Elaine). Additional authors appear in normal order, joined by "and".
2. Year of publication. The book's copyright year, as its own sentence.
3. Chapter title in quotation marks, headline capitalization. The chapter title is set in roman type. Capitalize it headline-style even if the book prints it differently.
4. "In" plus the book title in italics. The word In is capitalized and only appears with book chapters. APSA never uses it with journal articles.
5. Editors, introduced by "eds." Editor names are never inverted, and the abbreviation is "ed." for one editor, "eds." for several. Use "and" before the last name, never an ampersand.
6. Page range of the whole chapter. First and last pages as an inclusive range (39–57), with no "pp." The parenthetical citation in your text points to the specific page you used; the reference always gives the full span of the chapter.
7. Place and publisher. City, a colon, then the publisher. Give only the first city listed on the title page, and add the two-letter state code when the city alone could confuse readers (Boulder, CO). Drop "Inc.", "Co.", and "Press" from publisher names, except for university presses: "Cambridge University Press" keeps its full name, and when a state's name is part of a university press, the state comes out of the place ("Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press").

The manual also accepts a second form that swaps the page range for a chapter number:

Halchin, L. Elaine. 2001. "And This Parent Went to Market: Education as Public Versus Private Good." Chap. 1 in School Choice in the Real World, eds. Robert Maranto, Scott Milliman, Frederick Hess and April Gresham. Boulder, CO: Westview.

Both are correct. Pick one form and use it for every chapter in your paper.

In-Text Citations for Book Chapters

APSA in-text citations name the chapter author, never the book's editors. The editors live only in the reference list. A citation is the author's last name and the year with no comma between them; a page or chapter locator follows the year after a comma:

(Halchin 2001) (Halchin 2001, 45) (Halchin 2001, 45–46)

If you name the author in the sentence, the year still follows in parentheses:

Halchin (2001) frames school choice as a contest between public and private goods.

Rules that catch chapter citations specifically:

• Two or three chapter authors: name them all, every time. (Dodd and Oppenheimer 1977) or (Roberts, Smith, and Haptonstahl 2016). Use "and", never an ampersand.
• Four or more authors: "et al." from the first citation. (Angel et al. 1986). If two of your sources would shorten to the same "et al." form, add the second author's surname (Angel, Brandt, et al. 1986) or a short title to keep them apart.
• Several sources in one parenthesis are separated by semicolons and alphabetized: (Halchin 2001; Hermann 1984).
• Two authors with the same surname get a first initial: (B. Ripley 1988; R. Ripley 1964).
• Chapter locators may use "chap." in roman type where a chapter number is clearer than a page: (Rex et al. 1985, chaps. 6, 7).

For a fuller treatment of parenthetical mechanics across styles, see our complete guide to in-text citations.

Worked Examples

Every example in this section either comes verbatim from the APSA Style Manual or extends one of its examples, so you can check each against the source.

1. Chapter With One Author and Multiple Editors

The most common case in political science: a single-author chapter in an edited volume.

Halchin, L. Elaine. 2001. "And This Parent Went to Market: Education as Public Versus Private Good." In School Choice in the Real World, eds. Robert Maranto, Scott Milliman, Frederick Hess and April Gresham, 39–57. Boulder, CO: Westview.

In-text: (Halchin 2001, 42) · Narrative: Halchin (2001) argues...

2. Chapter With a Single Editor

With one editor the abbreviation shrinks to "ed." and everything else stays put. From the manual's example of a chapter alongside an editor:

Hermann, Margaret G. 1984. "Personality and Foreign Policy Decision Making: A Study of Fifty-Three Heads of Government." In Foreign Policy Decision Making, eds. Donald A. Sylvan and Steve Chan, 133–52. New York: Praeger.

In-text: (Hermann 1984, 140)

Notice the page range 133–52: APSA follows Chicago's compressed style for inclusive numbers, repeating only the digits that change.

3. Chapter in a Later Edition

When the book is anything past its first edition, the edition number sits between the book title and the editors, preceded by a comma and set in roman type even though the title around it is italic. The manual's example:

Hall, Peter Dobkin. 2006. "A Historical Overview of Philanthropy, Voluntary Associations, and Nonprofit Organizations in the United States, 1600–2000." In The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, 2nd edition, eds. W. W. Powell and R. Steinberg, 32–65. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

In-text: (Hall 2006)

Cite the edition you actually read. Page numbers shift between editions, so a citation to the 2nd edition checked against the 1st will send your reader to the wrong place.

4. Chapter Read Online With a DOI

Whenever you read a source online, APSA requires a direct link alongside the normal citation data. The order of preference is DOI first, then a permalink, then a shortened URL. APSA formats DOIs with a "doi:" prefix and the numerals, unlike the full URL form other styles use:

Halchin, L. Elaine. 2001. "And This Parent Went to Market: Education as Public Versus Private Good." In School Choice in the Real World, eds. Robert Maranto, Scott Milliman, Frederick Hess and April Gresham, 39–57. Boulder, CO: Westview. doi: 10.xxxx/xxxxx.

(The DOI here is a placeholder; use the one printed on the chapter's landing page.) An access date is only required when the source has no publication or revision date.

5. Chapter Read as an Ebook

For ebooks, name the platform after the publication information, plus the file format if the platform specifies one:

Halchin, L. Elaine. 2001. "And This Parent Went to Market: Education as Public Versus Private Good." In School Choice in the Real World, eds. Robert Maranto, Scott Milliman, Frederick Hess and April Gresham, 39–57. Boulder, CO: Westview. Amazon Kindle.

If the ebook's text reflows (so "page 45" on your screen is not page 45 on anyone else's), cite a chapter number or section heading in the text instead of a page: (Halchin 2001, chap. 2).

6. A Volume Within a Multivolume Work

When the chapter-like unit is one volume of a multivolume set, the volume title comes first and "Vol. N of" introduces the set:

Hume, David. 1932. Volume II 1766–1776, Vol. 2 of The Letters of David Hume, ed. J. Y. T. Greig. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

In-text: (Hume 1932)

7. Introduction, Preface, Foreword, or Afterword

When you cite the front or back matter of an edited book, the general term stands in where the chapter title would go, with no quotation marks:

Last Name, First Name. Year. Introduction. In Title of Book, eds. First Name Last Name and First Name Last Name, page range. City: Publisher.

The author position belongs to whoever wrote the introduction. When the editors wrote it themselves, their names lead the entry and repeat after the title; when a guest wrote a foreword, the guest leads and the editors stay in their usual slot. In text, cite the writer of the piece: (Last Name Year).

8. Chapter in a Book That Is Part of a Series

A series name follows the book title in roman type, with no quotation marks. The series number and series editor can follow the series title. The shape:

Last Name, First Name. Year. "Title of Chapter." In Title of Book, Series Title, eds. First Name Last Name, page range. City: Publisher.

If your book carries both a series and an edition statement, the edition comes directly after the book title and the series follows it.

Special Cases

The Book Has Editors but Your Citation Has No Chapter Author

Some edited volumes are cited whole because you drew on the editors' framing across the entire book. In that case the editors move into the author position, with "eds." after their names preceded by a comma:

Maranto, Robert, Scott Milliman, Frederick Hess and April Gresham, eds. 2001. School Choice in the Real World. Boulder, CO: Westview.

In-text: (Maranto et al. 2001). The "eds." is dropped from the parenthetical citation; abbreviations like ed., eds., and trans. appear only in the reference list.

No Date

When no publication year can be located anywhere in the book, "n.d." takes the year's place in both the reference and the citation: (Durant n.d.). For a chapter in a book that is accepted for publication and in production, "forthcoming" replaces the year, set in roman type.

Two Chapters by the Same Author in the Same Year

Attach lowercase letters to the year, ordered by alphabetizing the chapter titles (ignoring an initial "A", "An", or "The"): (Frankly 1957a, 1957b). The letters appear in the reference list entries too, so each parenthetical points to exactly one entry.

Two Chapters From the Same Edited Book

The APSA manual gives no shortcut here, and the honest answer is that none is needed: give each chapter its own full reference entry under its own author. The author-date system keys every parenthetical to an author name, so a shared entry for the book would leave your in-text citations pointing nowhere. Repeating the book's details in two entries feels redundant and is correct.

A Translated Chapter

A translator is treated like an editor: named after the title, not inverted, introduced by "trans." preceded by a comma. When a chapter has both editors and a translator, list them in the order they appear on the title page. In text, cite the chapter author alone.

A Reprinted or Republished Chapter

Classic essays get anthologized repeatedly. Cite the version you read, and give both dates, with the original in brackets: (Marx and Engels [1933] 1964, 25). In the reference, the bracketed original date comes first, then the reprint date.

Ten or More Chapter Authors

Large-team chapters are rare in political science but common in handbook volumes with policy teams. The reference list names every author up to nine. At ten or more, list the first seven and finish with "et al." In the text, "et al." kicks in at four authors, so the parenthetical stays short either way.

Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

• Citing the editor instead of the chapter author. It happens because the editors' names dominate the book's cover and the library record. The parenthetical always carries the person who wrote the words you are citing; the editors wait in the reference list.
• Writing "edited by" instead of "eds." This is Chicago's phrasing, and citation tools trained on Chicago produce it constantly. APSA abbreviates: "ed." or "eds.", comma before, names in normal order.
• Putting the page range after the publisher. Some citation generators (including CSL-based tools) render "...Boulder, CO: Westview, 39–57." The manual's own example places the range directly after the editors and before the place of publication. If a tool gives you the other order, move the pages.
• Inverting every author's name. Only the first author flips to "Last, First". Second and later authors, and all editors, read in normal order. A reference full of inverted names is the fastest tell that nobody proofread the list.
• Using an ampersand. APA habits die hard. APSA uses "and" in references and in parentheticals alike: (Dodd and Oppenheimer 1977), never (Dodd & Oppenheimer 1977).
• Italicizing the chapter title. Italics belong to the book. The chapter gets quotation marks and roman type. If both titles end up italic, the reader cannot tell the container from the contribution.
• Citing the whole book when you used one chapter. If your argument rests on pages 39–57 by one contributor, the reference should deliver your reader to that contributor. Whole-book references are for whole-book claims.
• Adding "p." or "pp." before page numbers. APSA omits them everywhere except the rare case where a bare number would be ambiguous.

APSA vs. Chicago Author-Date: What Actually Differs

APSA is a dialect of Chicago author-date, and for book chapters the two are nearly identical. Knowing the exact differences matters because most software offers Chicago but not APSA, and librarians routinely advise political science students to start from Chicago author-date and adjust. These are the adjustments:

Everything else, from headline capitalization to the "et al." thresholds to alphabetizing the reference list letter by letter, carries straight over from Chicago. If you want the fuller picture of the parent system, our guide to Chicago author-date style covers it in depth (note that guide follows the current 18th edition, while APSA's manual is keyed to the 17th). Political theory courses that use footnotes instead of parentheticals are usually asking for Chicago notes-bibliography, which is a different system, so confirm which one your syllabus means before formatting anything.

Quick-Reference Table