MHRA Referencing

When writers use sources by other authors, they need to give credit to those authors. This helps writers avoid plagiarism, the act of passing off someone else’s work as one’s own. It also helps writers maintain their academic integrity.

To avoid plagiarism, writers should follow referencing guides, which are rule books for how to cite sources. Common referencing guides include APA, MLA, and MHRA. Writers in the humanities and the arts often use MHRA to give credit to the sources they used.

MHRA Referencing Guide

The Modern Humanities Research Association is an international organization for research in the humanities. The association developed a style guide for writers in the humanities to cite their sources. The MHRA referencing guides require writers to insert superscripts at the end of each sentence that uses information from another source. Then the writer should insert footnotes at the bottom of the page that correspond to each superscript.

The first time a writer cites a source in a footnote, they should include the full citation and the page number where they found the information. In subsequent citations, they only have to include the author's last name and the page number. To insert a footnote, writers typically click “insert” and then “footnote” when using a digital word processor.

MHRA also requires a bibliography at the end of the text, with full citations for all of the sources the writers used. A bibliography is a list of all of the sources a writer consulted when researching a text, even if they are not specifically mentioned in the text. The citations in a bibliography are slightly different than those used as footnotes. Those used as footnotes include the specific pages of the information used in that citation, while the information in the bibliography does not include specific page numbers.

MHRA Style

When citing sources in MHRA, writers should note the following information if it is available:

• The author’s first name

• The author’s last name

• The title

• The name of the text it was found in (if relevant)

• The location of publication

• The publisher

• The publication date

Once the reader has noted the following information, they should cite it according to what type of source it is. They should use the following chart when creating MHRA citations for a bibliography:

Notes

• List all sources in the bibliography alphabetically by author's last name.

• If a webpage does not have an author's name listed, start with the website's title.

• Do not use pp. before page numbers when writing about the page range of a journal article.

• Use pp. to describe the range of pages of a chapter in a book.

• Put the titles of the sources in title case. This means that the first letter of all main words is capitalized.

• Include the author's middle initial in all source types if available.

Footnote Format

When citing a source in a footnote, the format is slightly different. The first time a writer includes a citation in a footnote, they need to include the full citation. However, unlike the citation in the bibliography, they need to write the author's first name first, then the last name. They also have to include the exact page number or numbers where they found the information.

MHRA Referencing Example

This example shows how a writer would include MHRA footnotes in a paper about Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle (1963):

MHRA Referencing Bibliography

A bibliography in MHRA needs to have the following characteristics:

• The title "Bibliography" centered on the page

• The sources are listed in alphabetical order by author’s list name

• Hanging indents, in which the first line of each citation is not indented, but the following lines are

• Double-spaced, sized twelve font. Typically either Times New Roman or Calibri

• The last name of the author comes before the first name. For example, "Vonnegut, Kurt"

The writer from the above example would create a bibliography that looks like this:

Fig. 2 - An example of a bibliography in MHRA.

MHRA Referencing Primary Sources

A primary source is a first-hand account of a topic, such as a journal entry or a government record. When formatting a bibliography in MHRA, writers need to list their primary sources in a distinct section of their bibliography entitled “Primary Sources.” For example, the following image features an outline of an MHRA bibliography with both primary and secondary sources.

Fig. 3 - An example of how to format a bibliography in MHRA by source type.

Difference Between MLA and MHRA

The Modern Language Association developed another common referencing guide called MLA. Writers in the humanities also frequently use MLA to cite their sources. There are several similarities between MLA and MHRA, but the list below outlines the differences.

The examples in this article follow the third edition of the MHRA referencing style. However, it is important to note that the Modern Humanities Research Association updates the style guide periodically. Whenever readers follow the guide or any referencing guide, they should double-check that they are following the formatting rules for the most recent edition.