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.
This style is designed for arts and humanities subjects and is generally the preferred format for assignments on The School of Arts, Languages and Cultures (SALC) courses.
Ten years have passed since the third revised edition of the MHRA Style Guide was published. While many aspects of scholarly practice have remained stable, the range of sources used by scholars and the ways that they can be accessed have changed considerably.
Note: This is predominantly a footnote or endnote style of referencing.
In academic writing, referencing generally takes one of two forms. In the first form, a source is cited in full in a note (either footnote or endnote) when first mentioned in the author’s argument. In books, and occasionally also in journals, this full reference is then also listed in an alphabetical list of cited sources. In the second form of reference, generally known as author–date citation, a minimal reference is incorporated into the main text in a format that can easily be matched to the full reference, which appears in the alphabetical list of cited sources provided at the end of the article, chapter, or book. This style goes by various other names: ‘in-text citation’, ‘parenthetical citation’, or ‘Harvard style’.
The MHRA Style Guide has always been closely associated with the first form of reference, which uses footnotes or endnotes (accompanied, in books, by a bibliography). So strong is this association that online referencing aids will often offer a choice between ‘MHRA or Harvard’, where Harvard is shorthand for author–date referencing.
However, the MHRA has for many years also published work in fields that conventionally use author–date referencing and offers a free choice to its book authors. We therefore present the two forms of reference on an equal footing in this chapter. Because footnote and endnote references contain complete information on the cited source, that section is much longer. The simplicity of in-text references requires little in the way of explanation. Nonetheless, since bibliographies in both systems are substantially based on the information included in a footnote or endnote, those using author–date referencing will find it useful to consult the main body of this chapter when compiling their bibliographies.
The author–date system uses short in-text references that can be readily matched to a corresponding bibliography item containing the publication details in full. The bibliographical references are placed at the end of the book, article, or thesis.
References in the text should give, in parentheses, the surname(s) of the author(s) (adding initials if needed to distinguish authors with the same surname), the publication date of the work, and, where necessary, a page reference, which should be preceded by a colon. If two or more works by the same author have the same publication date they should be distinguished by adding letters after the dates (‘2017a’, ‘2017b’, etc.). For example:
Example:While the word ‘disability’ was certainly part of a Romantic-era vocabulary, its use in that period does not match its use today, which means that care must be taken when applying the word retrospectively (Joshua 2020: 1–2).
Example:There is ample evidence that ‘early moderns relied on human–plant similarities to think through the perceived risks and benefits of transplantation’ (Biggie 2022: 174).
Example:Recent studies of literary motherhood (notably Rye and others 2017) stress the role played by literary texts in exploring maternal ambivalence.
Example:Rosi Braidotti’s thinking on posthumanism has been widely applied to literary texts, for instance to Bowen’s ‘The Demon Lover’ (P. Mukherjee 2021).
Example:Áine O’Healy identifies a new wave of Italian film in which ‘immigration is envisioned neither as a novelty nor a pressing emergency but rather as part of everyday urban life’ (2019a: 178).
When the author’s name is given in the text, it need not be repeated in a reference given in the same sentence: e.g., do not write ‘Smith (Smith 2021) argues that...’. In such cases, the reference either follows the name or, if this seems stylistically preferable, may come at some other point in the same sentence:
The bibliography in a book takes slightly different forms according to whether the citation with notes system or the author–date system has been used in the main text: see §8.3 and §8.4 respectively.
The above information links directly to an external source: MHRA.org. This material is cited for reference only.
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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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Modern Humanities Research Association MHRA-Footnote and MHRA (Author-Date) styles are both available through the EndNote programme.
MHRA 4 Edition styles are available via the EndNote styles webpage:
EndNote Online is free web-based implementation of EndNote. Modern Humanities Research Association MHRA-Footnote and MHRA Manchester styles are both available through EndNote online.
Mendeley is a free reference manager and an academic social network. Manage your research, showcase your work, connect and collaborate with others.
Modern Humanities Research Association MHRA-Footnote and MHRA (Author-Date) styles are both available through Mendeley.
Zotero is a free, open-source reference management software that helps users collect, organize, cite, and share research sources like articles, books, and web pages.
Styles for Modern Humanities to use in Zotero can be found using the following link:
Zotero Style Repository
To quickly insert a footnote in word use Ctrl-Alt-F then insert your reference.
The Official MHRA Style Guideline can be found online and includes:
The complete text of the Style Guide is presented free online from the MHRA contents page. An overview is also available via the Quick Guide online. The full Guide can also be bought as an inexpensive paperback, or downloaded free as a PDF. This text nevertheless remains subject to copyright, and should not be reproduced without permission.
MHRA styled citations are used throughout the MHRA's online catalogue, with links to explanations. Here are: a typical monograph, a typical collected volume, a special number of a journal cited as a book, and a typical translation; and here are: an article in a journal, a chapter in an edited book, an article in a special number of a journal, and an article in an electronic journal.
The information contained within these pages is intended as a general referencing guideline.
Please check with your supervisor to ensure that you are following the specific guidelines required by your school.