PERRLA/Guides/MLA 9/Edited book

How to Cite an Edited Book in MLA 9

An MLA 9 Works Cited entry for a whole edited book puts the editors where the author would go, followed by a comma and editor for one or editors for more. Then comes the book title in italics, the edition, the publisher, the year, and the DOI if the book has one. The in-text citation uses the editors' last names, with no label: (Ferrell and Paice).

The format

Last Name, First Name, and First Name Last Name, editors. Title of the Book. #th ed., Publisher, Year, https://doi.org/xxxx.

PERRLA MLA Experts ยท Updated October 27, 2026
Checked against the MLA Handbook, 9th edition. Every example is formatted by PERRLA's reference engine.

First, the easy way: PERRLA

Search for the book in PERRLA's reference search by its DOI, its ISBN, or its title. PERRLA fills in the names, the title, the year, and the publisher. Before you add it, check two things. Book catalogs often list a book's editors as its authors, so look at each name's role and change it to Editor if needed. Then hold the names, the year, the edition, and the publisher up against the book's title and copyright pages.

Adding one by hand? Choose Book, then Book, e-book, or audiobook and All or part of a book. Add each editor with the role Editor, in the order the title page lists them, then the year, the title, the edition, the publisher, and the DOI or URL. When a book has editors and no authors, PERRLA moves the editors to the front, adds editor or editors, and shortens three or more to the first one and et al.

Citing one chapter written by someone else? Choose Chapter in edited book instead. PERRLA puts the chapter's author first and the editors after edited by.

Not using PERRLA yet? Here is how to build the same works cited entry by hand.

The parts of the works cited entry

1. Editors

Put the editors where the author would go. Invert the first editor's name (last name, comma, first name as the book prints it), then add a comma and editor for one or editors for more, spelled out and lowercase, followed by a period.

Hughes, Ronda G., editor.

Two editors: invert only the first, then write and and the second editor's name in normal order.

Ferrell, Betty Rolling, and Judith A. Paice, editors.

Three or more: the first editor, et al., and editors.

Donaldson, Liam, et al., editors.

2. Title

Write the book title in italics and title case, with a capital after a colon. End it with a period.

Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses.

3. Edition

For any edition after the first, write the edition after the title, as a numeral and ed., followed by a comma. A first edition gets nothing.

5th ed.,

4. Publisher

Give the publisher's name, followed by a comma. Leave out Inc. and the city. A university press is shortened to UP, so Oxford University Press becomes Oxford UP. A government agency can be the publisher.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality,

If the title page names two publishers, give both with a forward slash between them.

5. Year

Give the year on the copyright page, even when a store or a publisher's site shows a different release date.

2021,

6. DOI or URL

End with the book's DOI as a full https://doi.org/ link, followed by a period.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59403-9.

No DOI, but a stable link, like a book on the NCBI Bookshelf? End with the URL, written without https://. Read it in print? End after the year.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2651/.

Examples

An edited book with two editors and an edition

The fifth edition of the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Nursing, edited by Betty Rolling Ferrell and Judith Paice. Each of its chapters has its own author, which makes it an edited book.

  • In-text citation(Ferrell and Paice)
  • Narrative citationFerrell and Paice bring together …

An edited book with four editors

The open access Textbook of Patient Safety and Clinical Risk Management from Springer. With four editors, MLA names only the first, then et al., in both the Works Cited entry and the in-text citation.

  • In-text citation(Donaldson et al.)
  • Narrative citationDonaldson et al. collect …

An edited book with one editor, published by a government agency

Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses, edited by Ronda Hughes and published by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). It's free on the NCBI Bookshelf, so the Bookshelf link ends the entry.

  • In-text citation(Hughes)
  • Narrative citationThe handbook Hughes edited …

In-text citations

An MLA 9 in-text citation for an edited book gives the editors' last names, with no editor or editors. That label belongs only in the Works Cited entry.

  • One editor: (Hughes)
  • Two editors: both last names joined by and: (Ferrell and Paice)
  • Three or more editors: the first editor and et al.: (Donaldson et al.)
  • A quote from the editors' own words: add the page after the names, with no comma, the same way you would for an author.
  • Name in your sentence: leave the parentheses out, or keep only the page there.

Most of the time, though, you're citing one chapter. If the chapter has its own author, cite that author and the page, not the editors, and give the chapter its own Works Cited entry.

Common mistakes

  • Ferrell, Betty Rolling, and Judith A. Paice. Oxford Textbook of Palliative Nursing.Ferrell, Betty Rolling, and Judith A. Paice, editors. Oxford Textbook of Palliative Nursing.Without editors, the entry says these two wrote the book. Book catalogs often drop the editor role, so add it back.
  • Ferrell, Betty Rolling, and Judith A. Paice, eds.Ferrell, Betty Rolling, and Judith A. Paice, editors.MLA 9 spells out editor and editors. Eds. is an older MLA habit and an APA one.
  • Ferrell, B. R., & Paice, J. A. (Eds.). (2019).Ferrell, Betty Rolling, and Judith A. Paice, editors.That's APA. MLA gives full first names, joins two names with and, and puts the year near the end, after the publisher.
  • Donaldson, Liam, Walter Ricciardi, Susan Sheridan, and Riccardo Tartaglia, editors.Donaldson, Liam, et al., editors.With three or more editors, MLA names only the first, then et al.
  • (Ferrell and Paice, editors)(Ferrell and Paice)The editor label appears only in the Works Cited entry, never in the in-text citation.
  • (Ferrell and Paice 373) for Margaret Campbell's chapter on ventilator withdrawal(Campbell 373)When you use one chapter, credit the person who wrote it. That chapter needs its own entry in the chapter-in-an-edited-book format.

Quick checklist

  • Editors in the author position, first one inverted, full first names
  • A comma, then editor or editors, spelled out
  • Three or more editors: the first one, et al., editors
  • Title in italics and title case, then the edition
  • Publisher (UP for a university press) and the copyright year
  • The DOI or a stable URL when there is one
  • In text: the editors' last names, with no label

Questions students ask

How do I know if a book is edited?

Check the title page. An edited book says "edited by" before the names, and each chapter opens with its own author's byline. If the title page names authors, it's an authored book, even if a long contributors list appears in the front.

Should I cite the whole edited book or one chapter?

Cite the chapter whenever you use a specific chapter's ideas or words: its author goes first, and the editors go after edited by. Cite the whole edited book only when you're writing about the book as a whole, or about the editors' own work in it.

What if a book has an author and an editor?

If the title page credits an author and also names an editor, the author goes first and the editor goes after the title. Because the title ends with a period, Edited by takes a capital E: Title. Edited by First Name Last Name, Publisher, Year. PERRLA does this for you when you add both names with their roles.

How many editors do I list?

One or two: list them all. Three or more: list the first editor as the title page orders them, then et al. and editors. The in-text citation follows the same rule: (Donaldson et al.).

Do I write editor or ed. in MLA 9?

Spell it out. MLA 9 writes editor or editors after the names when the editors come first, and edited by when they come after a title. Leave it out of the in-text citation.

Do I cite an edited e-book differently?

Barely. If you read it on an e-reader or in an app, add e-book ed. after any edition number, as the version: 5th ed., e-book ed. If you read it in a library database, add the database's name in italics as a second container, then the link. Don't name the library you borrowed it from.

Rules checked against the MLA Handbook (9th ed.), chapter 5 (the core elements and contributor labels; 5.61 for two publishers, 5.65 for UP, and 5.93 for DOIs) and chapter 6 (in-text citations), and the MLA Style Center. Example sources verified against PubMed (PMIDs 36315660 and 21328752), Crossref, Oxford Academic, and the NCBI Bookshelf, with each book's DOI or link opened.

PERRLA builds the edited book entry for you, with the editors up front and editor or editors spelled out.

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