Welcome to the MHRA Style Guide Online
 | This is the Fourth Edition (2024) of the MHRA Style Guide, which superseded the Third Edition (2013) in February 2024. The text of the Third Edition will remain online here throughout the rest of 2024 for the benefit of publications part-way through editing, where it would be impractical to change styles mid-stream. However, all new MHRA books and journal articles should use this Fourth Edition, and from January 2025, the Third Edition will be withdrawn from our website entirely. The Guide is an essential reference for scholars, students, and editors in the Modern Humanities. Originally codified for our own use, MHRA style has since 1971 been used much more widely, and today many universities require dissertations to follow it. Paperback edition. The full Guide can also be bought as an inexpensive paperback, or downloaded free as a PDF. The text is Open Access, and licenced as Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0. |
Contents • Introduction • Changes • Quick Guide • Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5 • Chapter 6 • Chapter 7 • Chapter 8 • Index
Contents
- Introduction
- Changes to MHRA Style
- A Quick Guide to MHRA Style
- Chapter 1: Preparing Copy
- Chapter 2: Spelling and Punctuation
- §2.1. Preferred Spellings
- §2.2. Accents
- §2.3. Possessives
- §2.4. Plurals
- §2.5. Commas
- §2.6. Hyphens
- §2.7. Dashes
- §2.8. Parentheses and Brackets
- §2.9. Abbreviations
- §2.10. Use of Full Stop for Abbreviations
- §2.11. Punctuation and Italicization
- §2.12. Quotations
- §2.13. Short Quotations in Running Text
- §2.14. Longer Quotations
- §2.15. Quotations from Dramatic Works
- §2.16. Footnote and Endnote Numbers
- Chapter 3: Capitalization and Italicization
- Chapter 4: Names
- Chapter 5: Dates, Numbers, and Quantities
- Chapter 6: DOIs and URLs
- Chapter 7: References
- §7.1. Citation in Notes vs Author–Date Citation
- §7.2. Choosing Sources
- §7.3. Citing Books, Chapters, and Literary Works
- §7.4. Citing Journal Articles
- §7.5. Citing Websites and Social Media
- §7.6. Citing Newspaper Articles
- §7.7. Citing Manuscripts
- §7.8. Citing Music, Film, Television, and Software
- §7.9. Citing Works of Art
- §7.10. Citing Theses and Other Unpublished Scholarship
- §7.11. Citing Interviews and Correspondence
- §7.12. Abbreviated References to Works Already Cited
- §7.13. The Author–Date System
- Chapter 8: Bibliographies and Indexes
- Index
Contents • Introduction • Changes • Quick Guide • Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5 • Chapter 6 • Chapter 7 • Chapter 8
Suggestions. The Guide aims to be stable, but minor revisions are periodically made by a committee under the chair of Professor Chloe Paver. Suggestions may be sent to: style@mhra.org.uk. The MHRA regrets that it is unable to enter into private correspondence about questions of style.