Changes to MHRA Style

In preparing the fourth edition of the Style Guide (2024), the editors have kept to a bare minimum the changes to core MHRA style since the third edition (2013). The following changes have been made in the interests of simplification and adaptation to digital environments.

1. Use of ‘pp.’ for the page extent in references to journal articles:

Previously: Susan Sontag, ‘Persona’, Sight and Sound, 36 (1967), 186–212

Now: Susan Sontag, ‘Persona’, Sight and Sound, 36.4 (1967), pp. 186–212

A quirk of earlier MHRA style was that it required ‘pp.’ for chapters in books but omitted it for journal articles. There was no special need for this distinction, which gave extra work to editors and proofreaders. Practice has been simplified by requiring ‘pp.’ for any run of pages, including journal articles.

2. Part number even for through-paginated journals:

Previously: Claudia Dellacasa, ‘Troubled Religiousness in La cognizione del dolore by Carlo Emilio Gadda’, MLR, 115 (2020), 834–51

Now: Claudia Dellacasa, ‘Troubled Religiousness in La cognizione del dolore by Carlo Emilio Gadda’, MLR, 115.4 (2020), pp. 834–51, doi:10.5699/modelangrevi.115.4.0834

Previously, we required the part number of a journal (e.g. 33.1) only if each part was individually paginated, that is, with Part 2 starting again at page 1. Most articles are now consulted online through journal databases, which divide each year of a journal into its parts. In the new MHRA style, authors give the part number as standard (but without a requirement to also specify the season/month, e.g. Spring 2022).

3. Requirement for DOIs in journal references:

Previously: Roya Biggie, ‘The Botany of Colonization in John Fletcher’s The Island Princess’, Renaissance Drama, 50 (2022), 159–87

Now: Roya Biggie, ‘The Botany of Colonization in John Fletcher’s The Island Princess’, Renaissance Drama, 50.2 (2022), pp. 159–87, doi:10.1086/722938

Nearly all journal articles, even those pre-dating the internet, now have a DOI. Academic writing is increasingly presented online with cross-publication links derived from DOIs, and this practice is likely to become more common. Articles and books which quote DOIs are far better placed to be a part of that emerging scholarly norm than those which do not. The DOI is therefore for the first time required by MHRA style. It is also good practice to supply a DOI where it is available for a book or book chapter.

4. Omission of place of publication unless necessary:

Previously: Susan Harrow, Zola, the Body Modern: Pressures and Prospects of Representation (London: Legenda, 2010)

Now: Susan Harrow, Zola, the Body Modern: Pressures and Prospects of Representation (Legenda, 2010)

For books produced today, place of publication is becoming increasingly arbitrary, especially as publishers merge and agglomerate. The same book may, for instance, have a different place of publication for its printed and ebook versions. In the new MHRA style, place of publication is omitted from references to books, except where it represents useful information for readers, as may be the case with books from the early era of printing, or from printing cultures where publisher names are omitted or uncertain.