MHRA Style Citation Demonstration
Click cover to enlarge | According to the MHRA Style Guide, this item should be cited in a bibliography as follows: Polcini, Valentina, ‘Between Two Traditions: the Fantastic in Dino Buzzati's Christmas Stories’, in Modern Language Review, 105.3 (2010), pp. 713–31, doi:10.2307/25698804 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'. Polcini, Valentina Step 2. This is regular MHRA style, so the name's followed by a comma. Polcini, Valentina, Step 3. Now we add the title, in single inverted commas. Any single quotation marks already in the title must be converted to doubles. Polcini, Valentina, ‘Between Two Traditions: the Fantastic in Dino Buzzati's Christmas Stories’ Step 4. We have to say where this comes from, so: Polcini, Valentina, ‘Between Two Traditions: the Fantastic in Dino Buzzati's Christmas Stories’, in Step 5. Next we identify where the article is to be found, using italics, not quotation marks, for the volume title. Polcini, Valentina, ‘Between Two Traditions: the Fantastic in Dino Buzzati's Christmas Stories’, in Modern Language Review, 105.3 Step 6. Since this is a journal, no need for place of publication or publisher, only the year. Polcini, Valentina, ‘Between Two Traditions: the Fantastic in Dino Buzzati's Christmas Stories’, in Modern Language Review, 105.3 (2010) Step 7. Now the pagination. And we use 'p.' or 'pp.' as appropriate. Journal articles used to omit 'pp.' in MHRA Style, but the Fourth Edition Guide (2024) removes this exception, so now page ranges in journals are treated just the same as in books. Number ranges are elided in the last two digits: thus '2234-2265' should be '2234-65', and '102-109' should be '102-09'. Polcini, Valentina, ‘Between Two Traditions: the Fantastic in Dino Buzzati's Christmas Stories’, in Modern Language Review, 105.3 (2010), pp. 713–31 Step 8. This contribution has a DOI, so the Fourth Edition Guide (2024) requires us to quote it, like so. Polcini, Valentina, ‘Between Two Traditions: the Fantastic in Dino Buzzati's Christmas Stories’, in Modern Language Review, 105.3 (2010), pp. 713–31, doi:10.2307/25698804 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 Valentina Polcini, ‘Between Two Traditions: the Fantastic in Dino Buzzati's Christmas Stories’, in Modern Language Review, 105.3 (2010), pp. 713–31, doi:10.2307/25698804, pp. 24-27. But in any subsequent notes, a heavily abbreviated form is used: 37 Compare Polcini, p. 17. |