How you cite an essay depends on two things: the citation style your instructor or publisher requires (usually MLA, APA, or Chicago) and where the essay appears (in a book collection, a journal, or online). The core information is the same across styles: the essay author’s name, the essay title, the larger work it appears in, the editor or publication, the date, and the page numbers. What changes is the order, punctuation, and formatting of those pieces.
Citing an Essay in MLA Format
MLA style is the standard for English and humanities courses. When you cite an essay from an edited collection or anthology, you start with the essay author, then give the essay title in quotation marks, followed by the book title in italics, the editor’s name, the publisher, the year, and the page range.
A works cited entry looks like this:
- Duyckinck, Evert A. “An Intellectual Chowder.” Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville, edited by Harrison Hayford and Hershel Parker, Norton Critical Edition, W. W. Norton, 1967, pp. 613–16.
If the anthology only includes an excerpt rather than a full essay with a title, replace the title with a description like “Excerpt from Confessions of an English Opium-Eater” without quotation marks.
For the in-text citation, MLA uses the author’s last name and the page number in parentheses, with no comma between them: (Duyckinck 614). If you mention the author’s name in your sentence, just put the page number in parentheses at the end.
Citing an Essay in APA Format
APA is standard in the social sciences, education, and psychology. The reference list entry for an essay in an edited book starts with the essay author, the publication year in parentheses, the essay title (not italicized, no quotation marks), then “In” followed by the editor’s initials and last name with “(Eds.)” or “(Ed.),” the book title in italics, the page range in parentheses, the publisher, and a DOI if one exists.
Here is an example from the APA style guide:
- Aron, L., Botella, M., & Lubart, T. (2019). Culinary arts: Talent and their development. In R. F. Subotnik, P. Olszewski-Kubilius, & F. C. Worrell (Eds.), The psychology of high performance: Developing human potential into domain-specific talent (pp. 345–359). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000120-016
A few APA-specific rules to keep in mind: do not include the publisher’s location. If the chapter has a DOI (a permanent digital identifier), include it at the end. If there is no DOI but the chapter has a stable URL, use that instead. If you found the essay through a database and it has neither a DOI nor a stable URL, just end the entry after the publisher name and skip the database name entirely. For ebook chapters that have no page numbers, omit the page range from the reference.
APA in-text citations follow an author-date format. When paraphrasing, include the author’s last name and publication year: (Aron et al., 2019). When directly quoting, add the page number preceded by “p.” for a single page or “pp.” for a range: (Aron et al., 2019, p. 350). APA guidelines encourage including a page number even for paraphrases when it would help the reader locate the information in a longer work.
Citing an Essay in Chicago Style
Chicago style offers two systems. The notes-bibliography system, common in history and some humanities fields, uses footnotes or endnotes for citations plus a bibliography at the end. The author-date system works more like APA and is common in the sciences. Most students citing essays will use the notes-bibliography system.
A footnote for an essay in an edited collection looks like this:
- 1. Kathleen Doyle, “The Queen Mary Psalter,” in The Book by Design: The Remarkable Story of the World’s Greatest Invention, ed. P. J. M. Marks and Stephen Parkin (University of Chicago Press, 2023), 64.
In the footnote, you cite the specific page you are referencing. The corresponding bibliography entry uses a slightly different format, with the author’s last name first and “edited by” spelled out:
- Doyle, Kathleen. “The Queen Mary Psalter.” In The Book by Design: The Remarkable Story of the World’s Greatest Invention, edited by P. J. M. Marks and Stephen Parkin. University of Chicago Press, 2023.
One recent change worth noting: the Chicago Manual of Style no longer requires the full page range of a chapter in bibliography entries. You still cite the specific page in your footnote, but the bibliography entry can omit the chapter’s overall page span.
Citing an Online Essay
When an essay lives on a website rather than in a printed book, each style handles it a bit differently, but all three require a URL or DOI.
In MLA, if you find an essay through a database (like JSTOR or EBSCOhost) that provides the original print publication details, include those details first, then add the database name and URL as a second “container.” For example, you would list the journal name, volume, issue, date, and page range from the original print version, then follow that with the database name in italics and the URL. Do not cite only the database version while leaving out the original publication information.
In APA, include a DOI whenever one is available. If no DOI exists but the essay has a stable, direct URL, use that. Do not include the name of the database itself. For ebook chapters with no pagination, simply leave out the page range.
In Chicago, footnotes for online essays typically include a URL or DOI at the end of the note. If you accessed the essay through a database and it has a stable permalink, use that.
Handling Sources Without Page Numbers
Online essays, blog posts, and some ebook formats lack traditional page numbers, which affects your in-text citations. In APA, when quoting directly from a source without pages, point to another identifying element: a paragraph number (para. 4), a section heading, a chapter number, or a table number. When paraphrasing, the author and year are sufficient.
In MLA, if a source has no page numbers, you can leave the page number out of the parenthetical citation entirely. If the source uses numbered paragraphs or sections, you can reference those instead. In Chicago footnotes, point to the section or paragraph that contains the material you are citing.
Quick Reference for All Three Styles
The differences between MLA, APA, and Chicago come down to details, but those details matter for your grade or your editor. Here is a side-by-side summary of what goes where:
- Author name order: All three styles list the last name first in the bibliography or reference list. In APA, use initials for first names. In MLA and Chicago, spell out the full first name.
- Essay title: MLA and Chicago put it in quotation marks. APA uses no quotation marks and no italics.
- Book title: Italicized in all three styles.
- Editor label: MLA uses “edited by.” APA uses “(Eds.)” or “(Ed.).” Chicago uses “ed.” in footnotes and “edited by” in the bibliography.
- Page range: MLA and APA include it in the reference entry. Chicago no longer requires it in the bibliography, though you still cite specific pages in footnotes.
- In-text format: MLA uses (Author Page). APA uses (Author, Year) or (Author, Year, p. Page). Chicago uses numbered footnotes.
- DOI/URL: APA requires a DOI when available. MLA includes URLs for database and web sources. Chicago includes URLs or DOIs in notes when applicable.
When in doubt, check the official style guide for your required format. The MLA Handbook, the APA Publication Manual, and the Chicago Manual of Style all publish free examples online that cover edge cases like essays with multiple authors, translated works, or reprinted pieces.