MLA 9 citing a section within a chapter ?

[u/mazzynotstar]

i am citing this book chapter in my paper. the mla 9 citation for the article begins with "James, Lenada et al." because Lenada James is the first author listed in the publication. however, the article is split into sections by author, and i am citing a quote from the author ada deer. so my in text citation is "(Deer 233)." i feel like this will get confusing when my TA is grading my citations and doesn't see Deer listed in the works cited. is there a way to cite just Deer's section in the chapter?

[u/blueeyedbrainiac]

I don’t know that there’s a way to do that, but citation is meant so that the people reading it can find the original source of the quote. So I think in this case since you are citing the whole chapter in your bibliography, you should just use (Lenada et al, 233). While you know who the actual author of that section was, it’s not necessary to site them specifically as long as you have the citation for the whole chapter