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APA – Citing Sources

Book chapters

Basic format

Only reference a chapter if it has individual authors for each chapter in the book. 

Surname, A. (year). Title of the chapter. In B. Surname (Ed.), Book title (pages). Publisher.

Book chapter

In-text citation:

Refer to the author/authors of the chapter:

  • . . . and academic texts require reliable evidence to support any statements made (Nodén et al., 2023).

  • Nodén and Welander (2023) emphasize that . . .

  • Nodén et al. (2023) state that...

In the reference list:

Author, A., & Author, B. (year). Title of chapter. In C. C. Surname (Ed./Eds.), Title of the book (pp. xx-xx). Publisher.
Commentary: Write "In" followed by the editor's or editors' names, and use "Ed." for books with one editor and "Eds." for books with two or more editors within parenthesis. Write the abbreviation "pp." for pages and the pages on where you find the chapter. 

​Reference example:

Law, M., Polatajko, H., Baptiste, S., & Townsend, E. (2002). Core concepts of occupational therapy. In E. Townsend (Ed.), Enabling occupation: An occupational therapy perspective (2nd ed., pp. 29–56). Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists.​

King, K. A. (2022). Global talent management: The central role of line managers throughout the organisation in shaping and implementing effective GTM. I K. Townsend, A. Bos-Nehles & K. Jiang (Eds.), Research Handbook on Line Managers (pp. 237-257). Edward Elgar Publishing.

Read more:

Further reading on how to write references for book chapters on APA Style: Edited Book Chapter References