How do I reference… chapters within an edited book in the APA7 style?
08/03/2022

So, in our last referencing post we looked at referencing books in APA7. This one goes a little further. This post is for you if you are referencing a single chapter within an edited book. The editors of an edited book will not necessarily be the authors of its individual chapters – so it is important to reference individual chapters when you use them.
Referencing an edited book
The book below is an edited book and its chapters, as you can see from the excerpt from its contents, each have different authors.

So, if we were referencing the book itself, our reference would be the same as for a traditional (authored) book – but with the simple addition of the letters (Ed.) or (Eds.) after the name or names of the editors. So the reference for this book would be as follows:
Dickmann, M., Brewster, C. & Sparrow, P. (Eds.). (2016). International human resource management: Contemporary human resource issues in Europe (3rd ed.). Routledge.
Remember to format your APA7 reference with a hanging indent. This is not always obvious unless your reference runs over more than one line of text.
Referencing individual chapters within an edited book
So if we wanted to reference a single chapter from this book in APA7, we need to take the book reference above and add in the chapter information (authors, title and page range) as follows in blue text.
Parry, E., Schröder, H., Flynn, M. & Anderson, D. (2016). Age and diversity in Europe. In M. Dickmann, C. Brewster & P. Sparrow (Eds.), International human resource management: Contemporary HR issues in Europe (3rd ed., pp. 219-236). Routledge.
You may also notice some other subtle changes:
- the editors’ names change to a less formal format and are followed by a comma
- the word ‘In’ is inserted in front of the editors’ names to indicate that the chapter appears within another source.
If you have any questions about referencing, please contact your library.
Please note: Cranfield supports two different referencing styles – APA7 (Author-date) and Numbered (NLM). Please make sure you use the style preferred by your supervisor or lecturer. The advice above relates only to the APA7 style. If you have any questions about referencing, please contact the Library.
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