How to cite a book chapter in AAA
A chapter from an edited book, with its own authors. American Anthropological Association.
Quick answer
To cite a book chapter in AAA, include the author(s), year, title, and container or publisher details. A concrete example is below.
Example
Locke, E., and Latham, G.. 2015. "A theory of goal setting and task performance." Organizational Behavior: Essential Theories of Motivation and Leadership: 122-141.
This example is rendered with the official CSL definition for AAA. For the exact style required by your journal, paste your references into DEEPNOTIS and pick that style from the dropdown — the app covers 2,800+ variants.
Official source
AAA is defined and maintained by the American Anthropological Association. When a formatting rule is ambiguous, their official guidance is the authoritative reference. DEEPNOTIS renders AAA from the same canonical CSL definition.
What you need
For a book chapter, AAA expects these fields at minimum:
- Chapter author(s)
- Year
- Chapter title
- Book editor(s)
- Book title
- Page range of the chapter
- Publisher
Common mistakes
- Mixing bibliography formatting with in-text citation rules. Reference-list entries and in-text cites follow different patterns — use the style's official guide for both.
- Forgetting the DOI. When a DOI exists, most styles now require it (usually as a full https://doi.org/… URL).
- Inconsistent capitalization. APA uses sentence case for titles; MLA and Chicago use title case. Mixing them is the single most common style error.
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Last updated: 5 May 2026