How to cite a book chapter in MLA 9
A chapter from an edited book, with its own authors. Standard in literature, languages, and the humanities. 9th edition published 2021.
Quick answer
To cite a book chapter in MLA 9, include the author(s), year, title, and container or publisher details. A concrete example is below.
Example
Locke, E., and Latham, G.. "A theory of goal setting and task performance." Organizational Behavior: Essential Theories of Motivation and Leadership, 2015, pp. 122-141.
This example is rendered with the official CSL definition for MLA 9. 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.
What you need
For a book chapter, MLA 9 expects these fields at minimum:
- Chapter author(s)
- Year
- Chapter title
- Book editor(s)
- Book title
- Page range of the chapter
- Publisher
Common mistakes
- Abbreviating author names. MLA spells out the first author's full name.
- Using parentheses around the year — that's APA. MLA puts the year inside the container description.
- 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