MHRA Style Citation Demonstration

According to the MHRA Style Guide, this item should be cited in a bibliography as follows:

Dutchman-Smith, Victoria, ‘Chapter 5 “Aus Dem Untergange Das Heil”: Sickness, Status, and “Syrakuser”’, in Dutchman-Smith, Victoria, E. T. A. Hoffmann and Alcohol: Biography, Reception and Art, MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 75 (MHRA, 2010), pp. 125–68, doi:10.2307/j.ctt32b93b.10

This is how standard MHRA style would look. Some of its book series (notably Legenda) allow an alternative citation system called 'author-date', but please talk to your editor before using it. (To see the demonstration for author-date, follow this link.)

Let's take this bibliography entry one step at a time:

Step 1. We start with the name(s) of the author(s) of the article, inverting the first name into the form 'Forename, Surname'.

Dutchman-Smith, Victoria

Step 2. This is regular MHRA style, so the name's followed by a comma.

Dutchman-Smith, Victoria,

Step 3. Now we add the title, in single inverted commas. Any single quotation marks already in the title must be converted to doubles.

Dutchman-Smith, Victoria, ‘Chapter 5 “Aus Dem Untergange Das Heil”: Sickness, Status, and “Syrakuser”’

Step 4. We have to say where this comes from, so:

Dutchman-Smith, Victoria, ‘Chapter 5 “Aus Dem Untergange Das Heil”: Sickness, Status, and “Syrakuser”’, in

Step 5. Next, the author(s) of the book, which come before the title because this is a monograph.

Dutchman-Smith, Victoria, ‘Chapter 5 “Aus Dem Untergange Das Heil”: Sickness, Status, and “Syrakuser”’, in Dutchman-Smith, Victoria

Step 6. Now a comma, not a full stop:

Dutchman-Smith, Victoria, ‘Chapter 5 “Aus Dem Untergange Das Heil”: Sickness, Status, and “Syrakuser”’, in Dutchman-Smith, Victoria,

Step 7. Here we have the book's title, in italics, not quotation marks.

Dutchman-Smith, Victoria, ‘Chapter 5 “Aus Dem Untergange Das Heil”: Sickness, Status, and “Syrakuser”’, in Dutchman-Smith, Victoria, E. T. A. Hoffmann and Alcohol: Biography, Reception and Art

Step 8. This book belongs to a series, so we'll name that. If the series is numbered, we give the number, too. No italics, no quotation marks in the series name.

Dutchman-Smith, Victoria, ‘Chapter 5 “Aus Dem Untergange Das Heil”: Sickness, Status, and “Syrakuser”’, in Dutchman-Smith, Victoria, E. T. A. Hoffmann and Alcohol: Biography, Reception and Art, MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 75

Step 9. Since this is a book, not a journal issue, we have to identify its source, in round brackets. Until 2024, MHRA style required a place of publication - for example, New York or Oxford. This is no longer given except in special circumstances.

Dutchman-Smith, Victoria, ‘Chapter 5 “Aus Dem Untergange Das Heil”: Sickness, Status, and “Syrakuser”’, in Dutchman-Smith, Victoria, E. T. A. Hoffmann and Alcohol: Biography, Reception and Art, MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 75 (

Step 10. Now a colon, a space, and the publisher's name. Abbreviating to 'MHRA' is fine here.

Dutchman-Smith, Victoria, ‘Chapter 5 “Aus Dem Untergange Das Heil”: Sickness, Status, and “Syrakuser”’, in Dutchman-Smith, Victoria, E. T. A. Hoffmann and Alcohol: Biography, Reception and Art, MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 75 (MHRA

Step 11. Then the year of first publication, and we're done with the bracketed part.

Dutchman-Smith, Victoria, ‘Chapter 5 “Aus Dem Untergange Das Heil”: Sickness, Status, and “Syrakuser”’, in Dutchman-Smith, Victoria, E. T. A. Hoffmann and Alcohol: Biography, Reception and Art, MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 75 (MHRA, 2010)

Step 12. Now the pagination. And we use 'p.' or 'pp.' as appropriate. Number ranges are elided in the last two digits: thus '2234-2265' should be '2234-65', and '102-109' should be '102-09'.

Dutchman-Smith, Victoria, ‘Chapter 5 “Aus Dem Untergange Das Heil”: Sickness, Status, and “Syrakuser”’, in Dutchman-Smith, Victoria, E. T. A. Hoffmann and Alcohol: Biography, Reception and Art, MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 75 (MHRA, 2010), pp. 125–68

Step 13. This contribution has a DOI, so the Fourth Edition Guide (2024) requires us to quote it, like so.

Dutchman-Smith, Victoria, ‘Chapter 5 “Aus Dem Untergange Das Heil”: Sickness, Status, and “Syrakuser”’, in Dutchman-Smith, Victoria, E. T. A. Hoffmann and Alcohol: Biography, Reception and Art, MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 75 (MHRA, 2010), pp. 125–68, doi:10.2307/j.ctt32b93b.10

And that's the finished bibliography entry. Note that there's no final full stop.

So how about citations in footnotes or endnotes?

In standard MHRA style, the first time the work is cited in a note, it should be cited in full. This looks very like a Bibliography entry, but:

  • The author's name doesn't always come first: only for monographs. For collections and editions, the title comes first.
  • Even if the author's name does come first, it's back to being the right way round, so it's Forename Surname, not Surname, Forename;
  • Unlike Bibliography entries, notes are punctuated as sentences, and usually end in full stops.

Suppose we want to cite a passage on pages 24 to 27:

34 See Victoria Dutchman-Smith, ‘Chapter 5 “Aus Dem Untergange Das Heil”: Sickness, Status, and “Syrakuser”’, in Victoria Dutchman-Smith, E. T. A. Hoffmann and Alcohol: Biography, Reception and Art, MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 75 (MHRA, 2010), pp. 125–68, doi:10.2307/j.ctt32b93b.10, pp. 24-27.

But in any subsequent notes, a heavily abbreviated form is used:

37 Compare Dutchman-Smith, p. 17.