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MHRA Style — Humanities & Languages Citation Guide

The Modern Humanities Research Association's footnote system — used in English literature, modern languages, and related humanities disciplines — with full worked examples and bibliography format.

📖 14 min read🎓 Humanities & Languages🗓 Updated 2025

Contents

  1. What Is MHRA?
  2. MHRA vs. Chicago NB
  3. Footnote Format
  4. Subsequent References
  5. Books
  6. Journal Articles
  7. Edited Chapters
  8. Online Sources
  9. Bibliography
  10. Common Errors

What Is MHRA Style?

MHRA (Modern Humanities Research Association) style is a footnote-based referencing system used in humanities disciplines — particularly English literature, modern languages, linguistics, film studies, and related fields. It is the house style of the MHRA's own journal publications and is specified by many UK university departments in the humanities.

Like Chicago Notes-Bibliography, MHRA uses superscript footnote numbers in the text and a bibliography at the end. The key differences are in punctuation conventions, how secondary references work, and some formatting choices for titles.

MHRA vs. Chicago NB — Key Differences

FeatureMHRAChicago NB
First note — author orderFirst LastFirst Last
Subsequent notesLast, Short Title, p. XLast, Short Title, X
"p." before page numbersYes: p. 45, pp. 12–18No: just 45 or 12–18
Book title in notesItalicsItalics
Article title in notes'Single quotes'"Double quotes"
Bibliography orderAlphabetical by surnameAlphabetical by surname
Bibliography author orderLast, FirstLast, First

Footnote Format — First Reference

The first time you cite any source, provide the full citation in the footnote. All elements are separated by commas. The footnote ends with a full stop.

Book — First Footnote
1 Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983), p. 7.
Journal Article — First Footnote
2 Catherine Belsey, 'Literature, History, Politics', Literature and History, 9 (1983), 17–27 (p. 19).
Edited Book Chapter — First Footnote
3 Homi K. Bhabha, 'Signs Taken for Wonders', in The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, ed. by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 29–35.
MHRA uses "p." and "pp." — Chicago does not

MHRA always writes p. before a single page number and pp. before a page range. Chicago NB omits these: just "45" or "12–18". This is one of the most common confusion points when switching between the two systems.

Subsequent References

After the first full citation, use a shortened form: author surname, short title (in italics or single quotes as appropriate), and page number.

Subsequent Reference — Book
7 Eagleton, Literary Theory, p. 52.
Subsequent Reference — Article
8 Belsey, 'Literature, History, Politics', p. 23.
MHRA does not use ibid.

The 3rd edition of the MHRA Style Guide (2013) removed ibid. from recommended practice. Always use the short-title form for subsequent references, even when citing the same work on consecutive notes.

Books

Single Author
1 Frank Kermode, The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 14.
Multiple Authors
2 René Wellek and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature, 3rd edn (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963), pp. 63–65.
Translated Work
3 Roland Barthes, Mythologies, trans. by Annette Lavers (London: Paladin, 1972), p. 117.

Journal Articles

Journal Article (Page Range in Parentheses)
4 Sandra Gilbert, 'Life's Empty Pack: Notes toward a Literary Daughteronomy', Critical Inquiry, 11 (1985), 355–84 (p. 369).

Note the MHRA convention for journal articles: the full page range of the article appears after the year in parentheses, and the specific page cited follows in a second set of parentheses.

Chapters in Edited Collections

Chapter in Edited Book
5 Stuart Hall, 'Encoding/Decoding', in Culture, Media, Language, ed. by Stuart Hall, Dorothy Hobson, Andrew Lowe, and Paul Willis (London: Hutchinson, 1980), pp. 128–38.

Online Sources

Online Journal Article
6 Simon Dentith, 'Parody in the Victorian Novel', Victorian Literature and Culture, 38 (2010), 259–74 <https://doi.org/10.1017/S1060150310000070> [accessed 14 January 2025].
Website
7 British Library, 'The English Novel: An Introduction', British Library <https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-english-novel-an-introduction> [accessed 14 January 2025].

Bibliography

The bibliography at the end of the essay lists all cited works alphabetically by author surname. Bibliography format differs from footnote format in two ways: (1) the surname comes first; (2) no specific page numbers are cited.

Bibliography — Book
Eagleton, Terry, Literary Theory: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983)
Bibliography — Journal Article
Belsey, Catherine, 'Literature, History, Politics', Literature and History, 9 (1983), 17–27

Common MHRA Errors

ErrorCorrect approach
Omitting "p." before page numbersAlways include p. or pp. in MHRA notes
Using ibid.MHRA 3rd edn dropped ibid. — use short title form
Double quotes for article titlesMHRA uses single quotes 'Title' for article and chapter titles
Forgetting full article page rangeJournal articles: (Year), start–end page range, then (specific page cited)
Placing bibliography in citation orderMHRA bibliography is alphabetical by surname, not citation order
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