MHRA Style Citation Demonstration

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

Tomasello, Dario. 2013. ‘Il buio in fondo al sacco: parole in fuga e corpi senza scampo nel teatro di Spiro Scimone’, in The Tradition of the Actor-Author in Italian Theatre, ed. by Donatella Fischer, Italian Perspectives, 27 (Legenda), pp. 188–200, doi:

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'.

Tomasello, Dario

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.

Tomasello, Dario. 2013.

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

Tomasello, Dario. 2013. ‘Il buio in fondo al sacco: parole in fuga e corpi senza scampo nel teatro di Spiro Scimone’

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

Tomasello, Dario. 2013. ‘Il buio in fondo al sacco: parole in fuga e corpi senza scampo nel teatro di Spiro Scimone’, in

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

Tomasello, Dario. 2013. ‘Il buio in fondo al sacco: parole in fuga e corpi senza scampo nel teatro di Spiro Scimone’, in The Tradition of the Actor-Author in Italian Theatre

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 '.'

Tomasello, Dario. 2013. ‘Il buio in fondo al sacco: parole in fuga e corpi senza scampo nel teatro di Spiro Scimone’, in The Tradition of the Actor-Author in Italian Theatre, ed. by Donatella Fischer

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.

Tomasello, Dario. 2013. ‘Il buio in fondo al sacco: parole in fuga e corpi senza scampo nel teatro di Spiro Scimone’, in The Tradition of the Actor-Author in Italian Theatre, ed. by Donatella Fischer, Italian Perspectives, 27

Step 8. Since this is a book, not a journal issue, we have to identify its source, in round brackets. Until 2024, MHRA style required a place of publication - for example, New York or Oxford. This is no longer given except in special circumstances.

Tomasello, Dario. 2013. ‘Il buio in fondo al sacco: parole in fuga e corpi senza scampo nel teatro di Spiro Scimone’, in The Tradition of the Actor-Author in Italian Theatre, ed. by Donatella Fischer, Italian Perspectives, 27 (

Step 9. Now a colon, a space, and the publisher's name. Here that's Legenda because this is the imprint name under which the book is published, even though Legenda is not strictly speaking a company. To decide these things, one must look at the exact wording of the preliminary pages. Our preference is for Legenda books to be cited as 'Legenda', and we word our preliminaries with that aim.

Tomasello, Dario. 2013. ‘Il buio in fondo al sacco: parole in fuga e corpi senza scampo nel teatro di Spiro Scimone’, in The Tradition of the Actor-Author in Italian Theatre, ed. by Donatella Fischer, Italian Perspectives, 27 (Legenda

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.

Tomasello, Dario. 2013. ‘Il buio in fondo al sacco: parole in fuga e corpi senza scampo nel teatro di Spiro Scimone’, in The Tradition of the Actor-Author in Italian Theatre, ed. by Donatella Fischer, Italian Perspectives, 27 (Legenda)

Step 11. Now the pagination. And 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'.

Tomasello, Dario. 2013. ‘Il buio in fondo al sacco: parole in fuga e corpi senza scampo nel teatro di Spiro Scimone’, in The Tradition of the Actor-Author in Italian Theatre, ed. by Donatella Fischer, Italian Perspectives, 27 (Legenda), pp. 188–200

Step 12. This contribution has a DOI, so the Fourth Edition Guide (2024) requires us to quote it, like so.

Tomasello, Dario. 2013. ‘Il buio in fondo al sacco: parole in fuga e corpi senza scampo nel teatro di Spiro Scimone’, in The Tradition of the Actor-Author in Italian Theatre, ed. by Donatella Fischer, Italian Perspectives, 27 (Legenda), pp. 188–200, doi:

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’ (Tomasello 2013: 21).

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

34 Tomasello 2013.

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.
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