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

Riordan, Colin, ‘Chapter VI: The Validity of Fictional Reconstruction’, in Riordan, Colin, The Ethics of Narration: Uwe Johnson's Novels from Ingrid Babendererde to Jahrestage, MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 28 (MHRA, 1989), pp. 99–112, doi:10.59860/td.c6b11dd

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'.

Riordan, Colin

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

Riordan, Colin,

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

Riordan, Colin, ‘Chapter VI: The Validity of Fictional Reconstruction’

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

Riordan, Colin, ‘Chapter VI: The Validity of Fictional Reconstruction’, in

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

Riordan, Colin, ‘Chapter VI: The Validity of Fictional Reconstruction’, in Riordan, Colin

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

Riordan, Colin, ‘Chapter VI: The Validity of Fictional Reconstruction’, in Riordan, Colin,

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

Riordan, Colin, ‘Chapter VI: The Validity of Fictional Reconstruction’, in Riordan, Colin, The Ethics of Narration: Uwe Johnson's Novels from Ingrid Babendererde to Jahrestage

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.

Riordan, Colin, ‘Chapter VI: The Validity of Fictional Reconstruction’, in Riordan, Colin, The Ethics of Narration: Uwe Johnson's Novels from Ingrid Babendererde to Jahrestage, MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 28

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.

Riordan, Colin, ‘Chapter VI: The Validity of Fictional Reconstruction’, in Riordan, Colin, The Ethics of Narration: Uwe Johnson's Novels from Ingrid Babendererde to Jahrestage, MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 28 (

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

Riordan, Colin, ‘Chapter VI: The Validity of Fictional Reconstruction’, in Riordan, Colin, The Ethics of Narration: Uwe Johnson's Novels from Ingrid Babendererde to Jahrestage, MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 28 (MHRA

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

Riordan, Colin, ‘Chapter VI: The Validity of Fictional Reconstruction’, in Riordan, Colin, The Ethics of Narration: Uwe Johnson's Novels from Ingrid Babendererde to Jahrestage, MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 28 (MHRA, 1989)

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'.

Riordan, Colin, ‘Chapter VI: The Validity of Fictional Reconstruction’, in Riordan, Colin, The Ethics of Narration: Uwe Johnson's Novels from Ingrid Babendererde to Jahrestage, MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 28 (MHRA, 1989), pp. 99–112

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

Riordan, Colin, ‘Chapter VI: The Validity of Fictional Reconstruction’, in Riordan, Colin, The Ethics of Narration: Uwe Johnson's Novels from Ingrid Babendererde to Jahrestage, MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 28 (MHRA, 1989), pp. 99–112, doi:10.59860/td.c6b11dd

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 Colin Riordan, ‘Chapter VI: The Validity of Fictional Reconstruction’, in Colin Riordan, The Ethics of Narration: Uwe Johnson's Novels from Ingrid Babendererde to Jahrestage, MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 28 (MHRA, 1989), pp. 99–112, doi:10.59860/td.c6b11dd, pp. 24-27.

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

³⁷ Compare Riordan, p. 17.