Incollection

Incollection is a bibliographic entry type used in BibTeX and biblatex to cite a part of a book, such as a chapter, essay, or section within an edited volume. The work has its own title and author, but the containing book has editors.

In an incollection entry, the typical fields describe both the part and the larger work. The author field identifies the author of the part, the title field gives the title of the part itself, and the booktitle field provides the title of the edited volume or collection. Additional fields commonly include editor (the editors of the book), publisher, year, and pages. Optional fields may specify the location of publication (address), edition, volume, series, and other details such as notes. The chapter field can be used to indicate a chapter number and helps distinguish the part within the book.

Relationship to other entry types: an incollection entry is distinct from articles (which appear in journals) and from inproceedings (which appear in conference proceedings). It is used specifically for a contribution to a larger, edited work. It is also differentiated from inbook in many citation styles: incollection cites a part of an edited volume with editors, while inbook is used for a part of a book that is not part of an edited collection.

Example (BibTeX-style):

@incollection{sample2025,

author = {Alice Smith},

title = {Understanding incollection},

booktitle = {Edited Volume Title},

editor = {John Doe and Jane Roe},

publisher = {Example Publisher},

year = {2020},

address = {New York},

pages = {12--34},

}

Inpractice, exact required and optional fields can vary by style guide (e.g., APA, Chicago) and by whether one uses BibTeX or BibLaTeX.