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ECL MHRA Guide

This document provides guidelines for referencing sources using the MHRA (Modern Humanities Research Association) style. It explains how to format footnotes and bibliographic entries for different types of sources like books, book chapters, journal articles, newspapers, films and webpages. It also briefly discusses some variations that are allowed and provides numerous examples of references formatted according to MHRA style.

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NickPan
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19 views

ECL MHRA Guide

This document provides guidelines for referencing sources using the MHRA (Modern Humanities Research Association) style. It explains how to format footnotes and bibliographic entries for different types of sources like books, book chapters, journal articles, newspapers, films and webpages. It also briefly discusses some variations that are allowed and provides numerous examples of references formatted according to MHRA style.

Uploaded by

NickPan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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MHRA Referencing

Preferred stylesheet: MHRA (can be downloaded from: http://www.mhra.org.uk).


If you are already familiar with a different style guide (e.g.: MLA; Chicago Manual),
you can continue to use that. The main thing is that you are consistent.
The following notes follow the MHRA style.
NB: If you use Endnote (whether the Web or the desktop versions), it will format your
notes and bibliography in a very strange way. The closest alternative style to use is:
Comparative Critical Studies.

Some things to remember:


In footnotes, it is customary to give full reference the first time a text is cited, then
abbreviate (see the examples below of first and subsequent footnotes).
It is also customary to use: Name Surname, Title: Subtitle (City of Publication:
Publisher, date), page(s) in footnotes, but invert Surname, Name in bibliography.
When there are multiple authors or editors, the Surname, Name of the first one listed
is inverted in the bibliography, the other ones appear as Name Surname (see edited
book, below)
If you quote from an article, it is useful to indicate first and last page, then the page(s)
from which you quote: pp. 49-79 (p. 51) / pp. 49-79 (pp. 51-52)
In footnotes, indicate the exact page or pages from which you quote (these will not
appear in the bibliography at the end of the essay). The correct abbreviations are:
p. 51 for single page;
pp. 51-54 for multiple pages.

Some possible variations:


The MHRA guide (like others) is prescriptive about certain details that may at times
see a little odd – for example, it recommends not using full stops at the end of
bibliographical entries: if you decide to use them, do, but in that case be consistent
and use them for all entries.
The MHRA guide recommends indicating the volume but not the issue number for
journal, unless…. and it gives a complicated list of cases where you should also
indicate the issue number. It is best to always indicate the issue number too, so there
is no confusion (see the example below).
The MHRA guide recommends using the format: Author, ‘Title of Essay’, in Title of
Book, ed. by Editor’s Name (publication details), pp. x-y. Some people prefer to use
a slightly different format such as: Author, ‘Title of Essay’, in Editor’s Name ed., Title
of Book (publication details), pp. x-y. As above, the main requirement is that you are
consistent.
NB: With footnotes giving all the publication details, many publications do not
add a full bibliography at the end: WE DO EXPECT YOU TO ADD A FULL
BIBLIOGRAPHY AT THE END (and don’t worry, it does not count towards the
final word count).
SOME EXAMPLES
BOOK:
First footnote:
Seán Burke, The Death and Return of the Author: Criticism and Subjectivity in
Barthes, Foucault, Derrida, 2nd edn (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998),
pp. 51-53.
Subsequent footnotes:
Burke, p. 57.
Please note: If another book by Burke is also cited in your essay, then use name +
title: Burke, The Death and Return of the Author, p. 51.
Or even name + short title: Burke, Death and Return, p. 51.
Bibliography:
Burke, Seán, The Death and Return of the Author: Criticism and Subjectivity in
Barthes, Foucault, Derrida, 2nd edn (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,
1998)

EDITED BOOK:
First footnote:
Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Nicholas Watson, Andrew Taylor and Ruth Evans eds., The
Idea of the Vernacular: An Anthology of Middle English Literary Theory, 1280-1520
(University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999)
Subsequent footnotes:
Wogan-Browne et al.
or:
Wogan-Browne et al., The Idea of the Vernacular.
[NB: I’m not adding a page reference here as my example assumes that the entire
book is being referenced; if an article or chapter within it is being referenced, you
would use the system described below, Chapter or article in book]
Bibliography:
Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn, Nicholas Watson, Andrew Taylor and Ruth Evans eds.,
The Idea of the Vernacular: An Anthology of Middle English Literary Theory,
1280-1520 (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1999)

CHAPTER OR ARTICLE IN BOOK:


First footnote:
Paul de Man, ‘Autobiography as De-facement’, in The Rhetoric of Romanticism (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1984), pp. 67-81 (p. 71).

Subsequent footnotes:
de Man, p. 79.
or: de Man, ‘Autobiography as De-facement’, p. 79.
or: de Man, ‘Autobiography’, p. 79.
Bibliography:
De Man, Paul, ‘Autobiography as De-facement’, in The Rhetoric of Romanticism
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), pp. 67-81

ARTICLE IN JOURNAL:
First footnote:
Robert Alter, ‘Nabokov and Memory’, Partisan Review 58.4 (1991), pp. 620-629 (p.
639).
Bibliography:
Alter, Robert, ‘Nabokov and Memory’, Partisan Review 58.4 (1991), pp. 620-629

ARTICLE IN NEWSPAPER:
These would be the same as journals, but the exact date is needed, and it is placed
in commas after the title, in place of “volume.issue (year)”; if the article appears in an
insert, or special section of the paper, it is also useful to indicate it:
Friedland, Jonathan, ‘Across the Divide’, The Guardian, 15 January 2002, section G2,
pp. 10-11

FILM:
First footnote:
2001: A Space Odyssey, dir. by Stanley Kubrick (MGM, 1968).
Bibliography:
Kubrick, Stanley, dir., 2001: A Space Odyssey (MGM, 1968)

WEBPAGES:
Art and Food, <http://www.londonfoodfilmfiesta.co.uk/Artmai~1/Mainar~1.htm>
[accessed 22 October 2009]
Bostwick, William, ‘The Meaning of the World in the Meaning of a Word: Definitions
from Carlyle to Suleri’, Victorian Web,
<http://www.victorianweb.org/genre/definition.html> [accessed 22 October 2009]
NB: for online texts reproducing a printed version exactly, you should give the full
citation as if it were the printed version (as in the examples above), and indicate how
you have accessed it, without needing the full (and often very long) URL. e.g.:
Downie, J. A., ‘Pope, Swift, and An Ode for the New Year’, Review of English
Studies 32.126 (1981), pp. 161-172 [accessed via JStor on 22 October 2009]

SOME OTHER EXAMPLES:


Benstock, Bernard, Joyce-again’s Wake (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
1965)
——— ed., The Seventh of Joyce: Selected Papers from the Seventh International
James Joyce Symposium, Zurich, June 1979 (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1982).
Hollier, Denis, Absent Without Leave: French Literature under the Threat of War,
trans. by Catherine Porter (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University
Press, 1997)
Ribeiro, Marília Scaff Rocha, ‘Variations on the Brazilian Orpheus Theme’ CLCWeb:
Comparative Literature and Culture 11.3 (2009),
<http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol11/iss3/7> [Accessed 22 October 2009]
Valentini, Daria, and Paola Carù, eds., Beyond Artemisia: Female Subjectivity,
History, and Culture in Anna Banti (Chapel Hill, NC: Annali d’Italianistica, 2003)
Woolf, Virginia, Orlando (London. The Hogarth Press, 1978 [orig. ed.: 1928])

ALTERNATIVE SYSTEM: AUTHOR-DATE


You cite the source in the main text by adding, in brackets, the surname of the
author, the date of the publication and the page; there are no footnotes for
referencing; in the bibliography, place the date immediately after the name:
In text:
Describing Nabokov’s use of precious objects, Alter (1991: 623) argues that ….
or: Describing Nabokov’s use of precious objects, Alter argues that …. (1991: 623).
or: Many precious objects appear in Nabokov’s memories in his autobiographical works
(Alter 1991: 623).
NB: You can use commas instead of colons: Alter (1991, 623), (Alter 1991, 623)
In the bibliography this would appear as:
Alter, Robert (1991), ‘Nabokov and Memory’, Partisan Review 58.4, 620-629
Benstock, Bernard (1965), Joyce-again’s Wake (Seattle: University of Washington
Press)

We tend to prefer the footnote system, but the author-date system is equally
legitimate (and it can help when your essays risk going over the word limit, as
footnotes count towards the total, but the bibliography does not).
As above: whichever system you use, be consistent and do not use different
systems in different footnotes, or mix author-date (e.g. for citations in the main
text) with bibliographical entries that place the date at the end, etc.

January 2012
Taken from Goldsmiths English and Comparative Literature VLE pages,
courtesy of Lucia Boldrini

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