MHRA Style Citation Demonstration
| According to the MHRA Style Guide, this item should be cited in a bibliography as follows: Castro, J. Paul de, review of Gerard Edward Jensen, The Covent-Garden Journal. By Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Knt. Censor of Great Britain (Henry Fielding), in Modern Language Review, 12.2 (1917), pp. 229–34, doi:10.2307/3714140 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'. Castro, J. Paul de Step 2. This is regular MHRA style, so the name's followed by a comma. Castro, J. Paul de, Step 3. Now we add the title, in single inverted commas. Any single quotation marks already in the title must be converted to doubles. Castro, J. Paul de, review of Gerard Edward Jensen, The Covent-Garden Journal. By Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Knt. Censor of Great Britain (Henry Fielding) Step 4. We have to say where this comes from, so: Castro, J. Paul de, review of Gerard Edward Jensen, The Covent-Garden Journal. By Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Knt. Censor of Great Britain (Henry Fielding), in Step 5. Next we identify where the article is to be found, using italics, not quotation marks, for the volume title. Castro, J. Paul de, review of Gerard Edward Jensen, The Covent-Garden Journal. By Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Knt. Censor of Great Britain (Henry Fielding), in Modern Language Review, 12.2 Step 6. Since this is a journal, no need for place of publication or publisher, only the year. Castro, J. Paul de, review of Gerard Edward Jensen, The Covent-Garden Journal. By Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Knt. Censor of Great Britain (Henry Fielding), in Modern Language Review, 12.2 (1917) 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'. Castro, J. Paul de, review of Gerard Edward Jensen, The Covent-Garden Journal. By Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Knt. Censor of Great Britain (Henry Fielding), in Modern Language Review, 12.2 (1917), pp. 229–34 Step 8. This contribution has a DOI, so the Fourth Edition Guide (2024) requires us to quote it, like so. Castro, J. Paul de, review of Gerard Edward Jensen, The Covent-Garden Journal. By Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Knt. Censor of Great Britain (Henry Fielding), in Modern Language Review, 12.2 (1917), pp. 229–34, doi:10.2307/3714140 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 J. Paul de Castro, review of Gerard Edward Jensen, The Covent-Garden Journal. By Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Knt. Censor of Great Britain (Henry Fielding), in Modern Language Review, 12.2 (1917), pp. 229–34, doi:10.2307/3714140, pp. 24-27. But in any subsequent notes, a heavily abbreviated form is used: 37 Compare Castro, p. 17. |
