MHRA Style Citation Demonstration

According to the MHRA Style Guide, this item should be cited in a bibliography as follows:

Greenslade, William. 2020. ‘Introduction Life, Contexts, and Criticism’, in Hubert Crackanthorpe: Selected Writings, ed. by William Greenslade and Emanuela Ettorre, Critical Texts, 71 (Cambridge: MHRA), pp. 1–33

This is in the author-date variant of MHRA style. MHRA's journals don't allow author-date citation, but some of its book series (notably Legenda) do: please talk to your editor before using this. (To see the demonstration for regular style instead, follow this link.)

Let's take this bibliography entry one step at a time:

Step 1. We start with the name(s) of the author(s) of the article, inverting the first name into the form 'Forename, Surname'.

Greenslade, William

Step 2. In author-date style, we have a full stop, then the year, then another full stop. If there are multiple entries with the same author and year, letters would be used to distinguish them: e.g., Bloggs 1994a, Bloggs 1994b.

Greenslade, William. 2020.

Step 3. Now we add the title, in single inverted commas. Any single quotation marks already in the title must be converted to doubles.

Greenslade, William. 2020. ‘Introduction Life, Contexts, and Criticism’

Step 4. We have to say where this comes from, so:

Greenslade, William. 2020. ‘Introduction Life, Contexts, and Criticism’, in

Step 5. Next we identify where the article is to be found, using italics, not quotation marks, for the volume title.

Greenslade, William. 2020. ‘Introduction Life, Contexts, and Criticism’, in Hubert Crackanthorpe: Selected Writings

Step 6. After the title come any editors or translators. It's 'ed. by', not 'ed by', because although 'ed.' abbreviates 'edited', we regard the 'd' as the second letter of 'edited', not the last: so the abbreviation doesn't contain the last letter, and thus must have a full stop '.'

Greenslade, William. 2020. ‘Introduction Life, Contexts, and Criticism’, in Hubert Crackanthorpe: Selected Writings, ed. by William Greenslade and Emanuela Ettorre

Step 7. This book belongs to a series, so we'll name that. If the series is numbered, we give the number, too. No italics, no quotation marks in the series name.

Greenslade, William. 2020. ‘Introduction Life, Contexts, and Criticism’, in Hubert Crackanthorpe: Selected Writings, ed. by William Greenslade and Emanuela Ettorre, Critical Texts, 71

Step 8. Since this is a book, not a journal issue, we have to identify its source, in round brackets. First, place of publication. This can be ambiguous. MHRA now has its registered address in Cambridge, so let's give that.

Greenslade, William. 2020. ‘Introduction Life, Contexts, and Criticism’, in Hubert Crackanthorpe: Selected Writings, ed. by William Greenslade and Emanuela Ettorre, Critical Texts, 71 (Cambridge

Step 9. Now a colon, a space, and the publisher's name. Abbreviating to 'MHRA' is fine here.

Greenslade, William. 2020. ‘Introduction Life, Contexts, and Criticism’, in Hubert Crackanthorpe: Selected Writings, ed. by William Greenslade and Emanuela Ettorre, Critical Texts, 71 (Cambridge: MHRA

Step 10. Since we had the date of first publication up front, we don't need it here, so we're done with the bracketed part.

Greenslade, William. 2020. ‘Introduction Life, Contexts, and Criticism’, in Hubert Crackanthorpe: Selected Writings, ed. by William Greenslade and Emanuela Ettorre, Critical Texts, 71 (Cambridge: MHRA)

Step 11. Now the pagination. This is a book, so we use 'p.' or 'pp.' as appropriate. Number ranges are elided in the last two digits: thus '2234-2265' should be '2234-65', and '102-109' should be '102-09'.

Greenslade, William. 2020. ‘Introduction Life, Contexts, and Criticism’, in Hubert Crackanthorpe: Selected Writings, ed. by William Greenslade and Emanuela Ettorre, Critical Texts, 71 (Cambridge: MHRA), pp. 1–33

And that's the finished bibliography entry. Note that there's no final full stop.

So how about citations in the main text, or in footnotes or endnotes?

The advantage of the author-date system is that these are very concise. In fact, you don't need a note at all. Suppose we quote from page 21:

The author reminds us of Shakespeare’s view: ‘Better a foolish wit than a witty fool’ (Greenslade 2020: 21).

And notes are concise too. There's no difference in how to treat the first and subsequent notes.

34 Greenslade 2020.

So is author-date easier than regular MHRA style? Not always. Firstly, it may not be allowed by your editor, so check before using. But secondly, it makes books easier to write, but only at the cost of making them harder to proof-read. If you discover at the last moment that Blenkinsop 1996 was actually published in 1995, that can mean hundreds of corrections to make, and it gets worse if an author has many publications in the same year, because Blenkinsop 1996e and Blenkinsop 1996d are easy to confuse.
http://www.mhra.org.uk/publications/Hubert-Crackanthorpe-Selected-Writings/author-date-style-tutorial-2
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