BibTeX Book Chapter: @incollection, @inbook

BibTeX has two entry types for a part of a book. Use @incollection for a chapter with its own author and title in an edited book, and @inbook for a chapter or page range of a book by one author.

On this page

@incollection or @inbook?
@incollection: a chapter in an edited book
@inbook: a chapter or pages of a book
How plain typesets them
Common mistakes
Differences in biblatex
Related entry types

@incollection or @inbook?

	`@incollection`	`@inbook`
Typical source	A contribution to an edited volume or handbook	A chapter or section of a monograph
`title` holds	the title of the chapter	the title of the book
The book’s title goes in	`booktitle`	`title`
`author` is	the author of the chapter	the author of the book
The part is identified by	its own title, plus `pages` or `chapter`	`chapter` and/or `pages` only

In most cases the answer is @incollection: a chapter that has a title of its own, written by someone other than the book’s editors. @inbook has no field for a chapter title, so it only fits when a chapter number or page range is enough.

For a paper in conference proceedings, use @inproceedings. To cite a whole book and mention a page, \cite[p.~42]{key} on a @book entry is simpler than either type.

@incollection: a chapter in an edited book

The required fields are author, title, booktitle, publisher and year:

@incollection{karp1972,
  author    = {Karp, Richard M.},
  title     = {Reducibility Among Combinatorial Problems},
  booktitle = {Complexity of Computer Computations},
  publisher = {Plenum Press},
  year      = {1972}
}

A complete entry also names the editors and the pages:

@incollection{karp1972reducibility,
  author    = {Karp, Richard M.},
  title     = {Reducibility Among Combinatorial Problems},
  editor    = {Miller, Raymond E. and Thatcher, James W. and Bohlinger, Jean D.},
  booktitle = {Complexity of Computer Computations},
  series    = {The IBM Research Symposia Series},
  pages     = {85--103},
  publisher = {Plenum Press},
  address   = {New York},
  year      = {1972},
  doi       = {10.1007/978-1-4684-2001-2_9}
}

Many book chapters have a DOI of their own. The DOI → BibTeX converter turns it into an entry.

Field	Status	Meaning
`author`	required	The authors of the chapter.
`title`	required	The title of the chapter.
`booktitle`	required	The title of the book.
`publisher`	required	The name of the publisher.
`year`	required	The year of publication.
`editor`	optional	The editors of the book.
`volume` or `number`	optional	The volume of a multi-volume work, or the number of the book in a series. Not both.
`series`	optional	The name of the series.
`type`	optional	Replaces the word “chapter”, e.g. `Part` or `Section`.
`chapter`	optional	The chapter number.
`pages`	optional	The pages of the chapter: `85--103`.
`address`	optional	The publisher’s city.
`edition`	optional	The edition of the book as an ordinal word: `Second`.
`month`	optional	The month of publication, as `jan` … `dec` without braces.
`note`	optional	Additional text, printed at the end.

@inbook: a chapter or pages of a book

The required fields are author or editor, title, chapter and/or pages, publisher and year. This example follows the one in xampl.bib, the sample database distributed with BibTeX:

@inbook{knuth1973,
  author    = {Knuth, Donald E.},
  title     = {Fundamental Algorithms},
  chapter   = {1.2},
  publisher = {Addison-Wesley},
  year      = {1973}
}

With all the details, and type to call the part a section:

@inbook{knuth1973section,
  author    = {Knuth, Donald E.},
  title     = {Fundamental Algorithms},
  volume    = {1},
  series    = {The Art of Computer Programming},
  type      = {Section},
  chapter   = {1.2},
  pages     = {10--119},
  publisher = {Addison-Wesley},
  address   = {Reading, Massachusetts},
  edition   = {Second},
  year      = {1973}
}

Field	Status	Meaning
`author` or `editor`	required	The authors or the editors of the book. Not both.
`title`	required	The title of the book.
`chapter` and/or `pages`	required	The chapter number, the page range, or both.
`publisher`	required	The name of the publisher.
`year`	required	The year of publication.
`volume` or `number`	optional	As for `@incollection`. Not both.
`series`	optional	The name of the series or multi-volume work.
`type`	optional	Replaces the word “chapter”, e.g. `Section`.
`address`, `edition`, `month`, `note`	optional	As for `@incollection`.

Both types also accept key and crossref.

Non-standard fields. doi, url and isbn are ignored by the standard styles (plain, unsrt, abbrv, alpha) without a warning. plainnat and biblatex print them.

How plain typesets them

With \bibliographystyle{plain}, the two complete examples are printed as

Richard M. Karp. Reducibility among combinatorial problems. In Raymond E. Miller, James W. Thatcher, and Jean D. Bohlinger, editors, Complexity of Computer Computations, The IBM Research Symposia Series, pages 85–103. Plenum Press, New York, 1972.

Donald E. Knuth. Fundamental Algorithms, volume 1 of The Art of Computer Programming, section 1.2, pages 10–119. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, second edition, 1973.

The chapter title of an @incollection is set upright in sentence case, and the book follows after “In”. An @inbook looks like a @book with the chapter and pages added after the title.

Common mistakes

Chapter title in chapter. The chapter field holds a number: chapter = {3} is printed as “chapter 3”. The chapter’s title belongs in title of an @incollection.

booktitle in an @inbook. The standard styles ignore booktitle for @inbook and print title as the book title in italics. An exported entry with the chapter in title and the book in booktitle must be an @incollection.

Editors in the author field. In an @incollection, author is who wrote the chapter and editor is who edited the book. The style adds the word “editors” itself, so don’t write “(eds.)” into the field.

Book title in title. If the book’s title ends up in title and booktitle is missing, BibTeX warns empty booktitle and the reference is unusable.

Page ranges and capitals. Write 85--103 with two hyphens. Chapter titles are converted to sentence case, so protect proper nouns and acronyms with braces. See protecting capital letters.

Repeating the book’s data. When you cite several chapters of the same book, the book’s fields can be stored once and inherited through crossref. See cross-references.

Differences in biblatex

This is where the two systems differ most. In biblatex, @inbook is also a titled part of a book: title is the chapter title, booktitle the book title, and bookauthor the author of the book. @incollection is for a contribution to a collection by different authors. An @inbook written for classic BibTeX, with the book title in title, therefore comes out wrong in biblatex and needs a booktitle.

Otherwise the usual renamings apply: location for address, date for year, and edition as a number.

@book for the whole book.
@inproceedings for conference papers.
@article for journal articles.
All entry types