How to cite a book chapter in Chicago 17
Short answer
How do you cite a book chapter in Chicago 17?
You need chapter author(s), year, chapter title, book editor(s), book title, page range, publisher. The reference list entry looks like this:
Moon, Jennifer. "Reflection in Higher Education Learning." In Handbook of Reflective Practice, 45-62. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.
The matching in-text citation is (Moon 2013, 45).
Gather the details
You need: Chapter author(s), Year, Chapter title, Book editor(s), Book title, Page range, Publisher. Take them from the source itself, not from a database record, which is often incomplete.
Order the elements
Chicago 17 is a footnote style, so the full citation appears in a note and again, reordered, in the bibliography. Follow the pattern in the example below exactly, including its punctuation.
Add the in-text citation
Every reference needs a matching in-text citation. In Chicago 17 that is (Moon 2013, 45). Missing or mismatched in-text citations are penalised more often than formatting slips.
Check against your own guide
Institutional variants exist, particularly in Harvard. Where your department's published guide differs from any generator, the department's guide wins.
What you need
Details to collect
- Chapter author(s)
- Year
- Chapter title
- Book editor(s)
- Book title
- Page range
- Publisher
Watch out
Mistakes this pairing invites
- Citing the book's editor as the chapter's author.
- Omitting the chapter page range, which most styles require.
- Treating an edited collection as a single-author book.
- Two distinct systems — notes–bibliography and author–date. They are not interchangeable.
- Footnotes use commas where the bibliography uses full stops.
Compare
The same book chapter in all eight styles
Moon, J. (2013) 'Reflection in higher education learning', in Handbook of Reflective Practice. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 45-62.
Moon, J. (2013). Reflection in higher education learning. In Handbook of Reflective Practice (2nd ed.) (pp. 45-62). Routledge.
Moon, Jennifer. "Reflection in Higher Education Learning." Handbook of Reflective Practice, Routledge, 2013, pp. 45-62.
Chicago 17
This pageMoon, Jennifer. "Reflection in Higher Education Learning." In Handbook of Reflective Practice, 45-62. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.
Moon J. Reflection in higher education learning. 2nd ed. Abingdon: Routledge; 2013. p. 45-62.
Jennifer Moon, 'Reflection in Higher Education Learning' in Handbook of Reflective Practice (Routledge 2013)
J. Moon, Reflection in Higher Education Learning, 2nd ed. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.
Moon J. Reflection in higher education learning. 2nd ed. Routledge; 2013.
Frequently asked questions
- How do you cite a book chapter in Chicago 17?
- Moon, Jennifer. "Reflection in Higher Education Learning." In Handbook of Reflective Practice, 45-62. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013. — that is the reference list entry. The matching in-text citation is (Moon 2013, 45). You need chapter author(s), year, chapter title, book editor(s), book title, page range, publisher.
- What details do I need to cite a book chapter?
- Chapter author(s), Year, Chapter title, Book editor(s), Book title, Page range, Publisher. If a detail is genuinely unavailable, most styles have a defined substitute — for example 'n.d.' or 'no date' where no publication year exists — rather than simply omitting the element.
- What is the in-text citation for a book chapter in Chicago 17?
- (Moon 2013, 45). The number refers to a footnote at the bottom of the page carrying the full citation on first use and a short form thereafter.