• 5-minute read
• 6th November 2016

Chicago Referencing – Citing an Edited Book (Footnote Citations)

Referencing is complicated at the best of times, especially if using a number of source types. With Chicago referencing, you also have to choose between an author-date system (favoured in the sciences) and footnote citations (used in the humanities).

To keep things simple, then, we’re looking at just one of these formats. It’s time to discover how to cite an edited book using Chicago footnotes!

First Footnote Citation for a Book Chapter

Each time you refer to a source, Chicago referencing requires you to give a footnote citation. These should be indicated using superscript numbers in the text (e.g. ¹, ², ³).

The first time you cite a chapter from an edited book, the footnote should include the following:

n. Author’s Name, ‘Chapter Title’, in Book Title, ed. Editor Name(s) (Place of Publication: Publisher, Year), page number(s).

We can see how this would look using an example:

1. David Carr, ‘Intentionality’, in Phenomenology and Philosophical Understanding, ed. Edo Pivčević (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 23.

Although most of the time you’ll be citing a single chapter or essay, you can also cite an edited book in its entirety by giving the editor’s name in place of the author’s:

2. Edo Pivčević, ed., Phenomenology and Philosophical Understanding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975).

Note that no page numbers are given in this case. This is because the book is being cited as a whole; if a particular section was being referenced, the author’s name would be given instead.

Repeat Citations

So that you don’t have to give full publication information each time, Chicago uses a shortened footnote format for repeat citations of the same source.

For consecutive citations, this simply involves writing ‘Ibid.’ and specifying the page(s) being cited if they differ from the previous citation. For non-consecutive citations, use the author’s surname, a shortened version of the essay/book title, and any relevant page numbers:

1. David Carr, ‘Intentionality’, in Phenomenology and Philosophical Understanding, ed. Edo Pivčević (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 23.
2. Ibid., 30–32.
3. Edo Pivčević, ed., Phenomenology and Philosophical Understanding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975).
4. Carr, ‘Intentionality’, 19.
5. Ibid.

In case you were wondering, ‘Ibid.’ is a Latin term meaning ‘in the same place’.

Citing More than One Chapter from the Same Book

If you cite more than one chapter from the same book, Chicago referencing allows you to cross-reference the first source citation when citing the new source.

This means you’ll need to give the new author’s name and new chapter title in full, but you can then shorten the rest of the citation to just the editor’s surname, the title of the edited volume, and a pinpoint citation. For instance:

1. David Carr, ‘Intentionality’, in Phenomenology and Philosophical Understanding, ed. Edo Pivčević (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 23.
2. Anthony Quinton, ‘The Concept of a Phenomenon’, in Pivčević, Phenomenology and Philosophical Understanding, 14.

Here, the second citation is from the same edited volume as the first. We therefore cross-reference the edited volume in the second citation to save having to repeat the full source details.

Listing an Edited Book Chapter in the Bibliography

With the Chicago footnote system, make sure to list all cited sources alphabetically by author surname in the bibliography. The format here is similar to the first footnote, but with a few differences:

Author’s Surname, First name. ‘Chapter Title’. In Book Title, edited by Editor Name(s), page range. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year.

As you can see, the author’s names are reversed and the punctuation is a little different. You also give the complete page range for the chapter:

Carr, David. ‘Intentionality’. In Phenomenology and Philosophical Understanding, edited by Edo Pivčević, 17–36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.

Meanwhile, to reference an edited book as a whole, you can use the editor’s name in place of the author’s:

Pivčević, Edo, ed. Phenomenology and Philosophical Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.

If a source has more than one author/editor, you only have to reverse the names of the first person listed. You can then give any other authors/editors with their names in the normal order (i.e. first name, followed by surname).

Listing Multiple Chapters from the Same Edited Book

If you’ve cited more than one chapter from the same book, Chicago referencing suggests giving the edited volume its own entry in the bibliography. When listing chapters from the edited volume, you can then simply cross-reference the main entry for the edited volume rather than repeating the full details.

For instance, entries for two chapters from a single edited book might look like this:

Carr, David. ‘Intentionality’. In Pivčević, Phenomenology and Philosophical Understanding, 17–36.

Pivčević, Edo, ed. Phenomenology and Philosophical Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.

Quinton, Antony. ‘The Concept of a Phenomenon’. In Pivčević, Phenomenology and Philosophical Understanding, 8–16.

Here, you can see that we provide the full details for the edited volume in a separate bibliography entry. The entries for the individual chapters then reference this main entry.

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