How do I cite a chapter in a book written by a single author?

Note: This post relates to content in the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook. For up-to-date guidance, see the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook.

Create a works-cited-list entry only for the book. If you want your readers to know the chapter titles, you can provide them in your text:

The point of view of children is important in Self-Reference Engine. In the chapter “Bobby Socks,” Toh Enjoe writes, “A child’s sock is not necessarily a sock child,” and in the chapter “Echo,” he remarks that Echo, a personification, conveys a greeting, and “the children interpret it correctly” (122, 313).

Work Cited

Enjoe, Toh. Self-Reference Engine. Translated by Terry Gallagher, Haikasoru, 2013.

You can also supply information about the chapters as a whole in the text of your paper:

Toh Enjoe’s Self-Reference Engine emphasizes the point of view of children, particularly in the chapters “Bobby Socks” (115–26) and “Echo” (307–18).