How To Reference A Book Chapter In A Bibliography?

I'm a grad student who's had to wrangle citations more times than I can count. For referencing a book chapter, the basic APA format goes like this: Author(s) of the chapter, publication year, chapter title, editor(s) of the book, book title in italics, page range of the chapter, and publisher. For example: Smith, J. (2020). The psychology of fandom. In A. Lee (Ed.), 'Modern Pop Culture Studies' (pp. 45-67). Penguin Press.

Make sure to italicize the book title but not the chapter title. The editor's name goes with initials first, and don't forget the 'In' before listing the editor. Page numbers should have 'pp.' in front. This format works for most academic papers, but always double-check your style guide because some professors want slight variations.

As someone who's written both fanfiction and research papers, I've learned referencing styles the hard way. For a book chapter citation in MLA style, start with the chapter author's last name, then first name. Put the chapter title in quotation marks, followed by the book title in italics. Then list the editor's name with 'edited by' before it, publisher, year, and page range. Example: Tanaka, Hiroshi. "The Evolution of Mecha Anime." 'Anime and Philosophy', edited by Sarah Chen, Tokyo Press, 2019, pp. 112-130.

Chicago style is different - you'd use footnotes for the first citation with full details, then shortened versions after. The bibliography entry would look like: Ueno, Naoko. "Manga Storytelling Techniques." In 'The Art of Visual Narrative', edited by Mark Johnson, 78-95. New York: Graphic Arts Publishing, 2021.

Remember that small details matter - whether you use 'p.' or 'pp.', how you format the editor's name, and whether to include the publication city. When in doubt, I always refer to the Purdue OWL website or my style manual. Different fields prefer different styles, so always ask if you're unsure. My literature professor wanted one format while my media studies instructor demanded another - it's enough to make any otaku researcher scream into their body pillow!

From my experience helping friends format their thesis references, I know book chapters can be tricky. The Harvard style is quite common in the UK and Australia. You'd write: Author(s) surname, initials. (Year) 'Chapter title', in Editor(s) initials, surname(s) (ed. or eds.), 'Book title'. Place of publication: Publisher, page numbers. So it would look like: Yamada, T. (2018) 'The influence of shounen manga on youth culture', in Saito, M. and Park, J. (eds.), 'Contemporary Japanese Media'. Tokyo: Kodansha, pp. 34-56.

Key things to note: Only the book title gets italics, not the chapter title. The word 'in' comes before the editor names. Page numbers go at the end with 'pp.' I always recommend using citation generators like Zotero for tricky cases, but you should still understand the basic format to spot errors. For multiple editors, list them all with 'and' before the last name. The edition number only goes in if it's not the first edition - that tripped me up on my first paper!