MHRA Style Citation Demonstration
Click cover to enlarge | According to the MHRA Style Guide, this item should be cited in a bibliography as follows: Ker, James, and Winston, Jessica, ‘INDEX’, in Elizabethan Seneca: Three Tragedies, ed. by James Ker and Jessica Winston, Tudor and Stuart Translations, 8 (MHRA, 2012), pp. 325–42, doi:10.2307/j.ctt24hzmk.14 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'. Ker, James, and Winston, Jessica Step 2. This is regular MHRA style, so the name's followed by a comma. Ker, James, and Winston, Jessica, Step 3. Now we add the title, in single inverted commas. Any single quotation marks already in the title must be converted to doubles. Ker, James, and Winston, Jessica, ‘INDEX’ Step 4. We have to say where this comes from, so: Ker, James, and Winston, Jessica, ‘INDEX’, in Step 5. Next we identify where the article is to be found, using italics, not quotation marks, for the volume title. Ker, James, and Winston, Jessica, ‘INDEX’, in Elizabethan Seneca: Three Tragedies Step 6. After the title come any editors or translators. It's 'ed. by', not 'ed by', because although 'ed.' abbreviates 'edited', we regard the 'd' as the second letter of 'edited', not the last: so the abbreviation doesn't contain the last letter, and thus must have a full stop '.' Ker, James, and Winston, Jessica, ‘INDEX’, in Elizabethan Seneca: Three Tragedies, ed. by James Ker and Jessica Winston Step 7. 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. Ker, James, and Winston, Jessica, ‘INDEX’, in Elizabethan Seneca: Three Tragedies, ed. by James Ker and Jessica Winston, Tudor and Stuart Translations, 8 Step 8. 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. Ker, James, and Winston, Jessica, ‘INDEX’, in Elizabethan Seneca: Three Tragedies, ed. by James Ker and Jessica Winston, Tudor and Stuart Translations, 8 ( Step 9. Now a colon, a space, and the publisher's name. Abbreviating to 'MHRA' is fine here. Ker, James, and Winston, Jessica, ‘INDEX’, in Elizabethan Seneca: Three Tragedies, ed. by James Ker and Jessica Winston, Tudor and Stuart Translations, 8 (MHRA Step 10. Then the year of first publication, and we're done with the bracketed part. Ker, James, and Winston, Jessica, ‘INDEX’, in Elizabethan Seneca: Three Tragedies, ed. by James Ker and Jessica Winston, Tudor and Stuart Translations, 8 (MHRA, 2012) Step 11. 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'. Ker, James, and Winston, Jessica, ‘INDEX’, in Elizabethan Seneca: Three Tragedies, ed. by James Ker and Jessica Winston, Tudor and Stuart Translations, 8 (MHRA, 2012), pp. 325–42 Step 12. This contribution has a DOI, so the Fourth Edition Guide (2024) requires us to quote it, like so. Ker, James, and Winston, Jessica, ‘INDEX’, in Elizabethan Seneca: Three Tragedies, ed. by James Ker and Jessica Winston, Tudor and Stuart Translations, 8 (MHRA, 2012), pp. 325–42, doi:10.2307/j.ctt24hzmk.14 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:
Suppose we want to cite a passage on pages 24 to 27: 34 See James Ker, Jessica Winston, ‘INDEX’, in Elizabethan Seneca: Three Tragedies, ed. by James Ker and Jessica Winston, Tudor and Stuart Translations, 8 (MHRA, 2012), pp. 325–42, doi:10.2307/j.ctt24hzmk.14, pp. 24-27. But in any subsequent notes, a heavily abbreviated form is used: 37 Compare Ker and Winston, p. 17. |