MHRA citation style is a notes-and-bibliography referencing system. It credits sources with a small raised number in the text and a full list at the end of the paper. It is maintained by the Modern Humanities Research Association and is the standard expected in most UK humanities courses, including English literature, history, and modern languages. Unlike author-date systems such as APA or Harvard, this approach keeps the sentence itself free of parenthetical clutter, since the reader finds the complete source details in the note or the closing list instead.
Tip: MHRA also has a less common author-date variant for disciplines that prefer parenthetical citations. Unless your module handbook says otherwise, assume the footnote approach is what your tutor wants.
What Is MHRA Referencing?
MHRA referencing takes its name from the Modern Humanities Research Association, the UK scholarly body that first published its style guide in 1971 and has since revised it into a fourth edition. According to the University of Manchester’s referencing guide, MHRA is what librarians call a notes style: every quotation or paraphrase gets a reference number, and every source then appears in full in an alphabetical list. Notes let a writer add short asides without breaking up the argument, something author-date systems cannot do as easily. Browse the full guide library to compare this style against one your course allows instead.
MHRA Footnote Citations
A small raised number goes in the text right after the quotation or paraphrase it supports. Place it after any punctuation but before a dash. That number then points to a note at the bottom of the same page, where the source details appear. As the University of Sheffield’s footnotes guide explains, the first reference to a source must give complete details. This means the author’s name in forename-surname order, the title, the publisher, the year, and the page number. When you quote a source directly, the page number is required. When you paraphrase an idea in your own words, a page number is still expected whenever the idea comes from a specific page rather than the whole work. Every note ends with a period.
Here is what this looks like in practice. Suppose an essay on Victorian fiction includes this sentence: the novel’s narrator describes the village as a place where ‘time itself seemed to move at half its usual pace.’1 The matching footnote at the bottom of the page then gives the full source: 1. Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd, ed. by Rosemarie Morgan (Penguin, 2000), p. 34. If the same page is cited again a few lines later, the second note can shrink to: 2. Ibid., p. 36. A citation from the same book but a different page, appearing later in the essay after other sources have been cited, drops back to the short form: 14. Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd, p. 112.
| Footnote element | MHRA format |
|---|---|
| First reference to a book | Forename Surname, Title (Publisher, Year), p. 12. |
| First reference to a journal article | Forename Surname, ‘Article Title’, Journal Name, volume.issue (Year), page range (page cited). |
| Repeat reference, same source | Surname, Short Title, p. 45. |
| Consecutive reference, same source | Ibid., p. 46. |
| Placement in the sentence | After the closing punctuation, before any dash. |
| End of a footnote | Always closed with a period. |
How Many Footnotes Do You Need?
A new number is needed for every distinct piece of borrowed material, whether it is a direct quote, a paraphrase, or a specific fact drawn from a source. Common knowledge, such as the year a well-known novel first appeared, does not need one, but any idea that came from someone else’s work does, even after a full rewrite in your own words.
When a single sentence draws on two different sources, each claim gets its own marker, placed right after the relevant clause rather than bundled at the end. New writers often under-cite paraphrased material, wrongly assuming a marker is only needed for direct quotes.
Citing Multiple Works by the Same Author
Once your bibliography includes more than one work by the same writer, a plain surname-and-page short form turns ambiguous. MHRA solves this by adding a short version of the title to every repeat instance: Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd, p. 112, rather than just Hardy, p. 112. List each of that writer’s works as its own separate entry, sorted alphabetically by title under the same surname heading.
Footnotes or Endnotes?
MHRA allows either footnotes at the bottom of the page or endnotes collected at the end of the chapter. Most undergraduate essays default to the bottom-of-page option, since a reader can check it without losing their place. Longer projects with dozens of references per chapter often switch to endnotes instead. Whichever you pick, stay consistent throughout.
Citing Classic Texts, Plays, and Poetry
Primary literary sources need more detail than a single number alone. For a play, add the act, scene, and line after the page, for example p. 45 (III.ii.14-16). For poetry, cite line numbers rather than a page wherever the edition includes them, since different printings often land on different pages. Classical works with a standard numbering system should be cited by that numbering first, with your edition’s page given afterward.
MHRA Bibliography Format
The bibliography sits on its own page at the end of the document and lists every source cited in the footnotes, arranged alphabetically by the author’s surname. This is the one place where MHRA reverses the name order used in the footnotes. A footnote reads ‘Forename Surname’, while the matching bibliography entry reads ‘Surname, Forename’ so the list can be alphabetized correctly. The Swansea University bibliography guide confirms that, unlike the footnotes, bibliography entries do not include page numbers for whole books, though page ranges are still required for chapters and articles. Many undergraduate essays do not require a bibliography at all, so check your assignment brief. Dissertations and longer projects almost always do.
| Source type | Bibliography format |
|---|---|
| Book | Eliot, George, Silas Marner, ed. by Juliette Atkinson (Oxford University Press, 2017) |
| Chapter in an edited book | Childers, Joseph W., ‘Social Class and the Victorian Novel’, in The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel, ed. by Deirdre David, 2nd edn (Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 148-169 |
| Journal article | Levine, George, ‘The Dickensian George Eliot’, Dickens Studies Annual, 50.1 (2019), 48-65 |
| Website | Essay Reply, MHRA Citation Style <https://essayreply.com/citation/styles/mhra/> [accessed 20 September 2026] |
| Newspaper article | Grant, Sarah, ‘University Referencing Errors Rise’, The Daily Record, 3 May 2024, p. 9 |
MHRA Citations for Websites and Online Sources
Online sources follow the same forename-surname pattern as print sources, with two additions: the full URL in angle brackets and an access date in square brackets, since web pages can change or vanish. If the page names an individual writer, use that name instead of the organization.
A typical first reference for a web page looks like this: Essay Reply, ‘MHRA Citation Style’ <https://essayreply.com/citation/styles/mhra/> [accessed 20 September 2026]. If no publication date appears on the page itself, the access date still shows how current the material was. The same pattern carries into the bibliography entry, with the name order reversed as shown in the table above.
MHRA vs. Other Citation Styles
MHRA and Chicago’s notes-bibliography option are close cousins, since both mark sources with small raised numbers. Where they part ways is formatting detail, such as how MHRA italicizes journal volume and issue numbers and drops some publisher locations that Chicago keeps.
APA and Harvard sit on the opposite side, using parenthetical author and year instead, which suits data-heavy social science writing better than long-form humanities essays. MLA skips numbers too, in favor of a short author-page mention inside the sentence. If your course allows a choice, these tools can help:
| Style | How sources are marked in the text |
|---|---|
| MHRA | Small raised number linked to a footnote or endnote |
| Chicago (notes-bibliography) | Small raised number linked to a footnote or endnote |
| APA / Harvard | Parenthetical author and year |
| MLA | Parenthetical author and page number |
Common MHRA Citation Mistakes
The most frequent slip is mixing up the two name orders MHRA uses in footnotes and bibliographies. Here is a quick contrast showing the correct pattern next to the mistake.
Related Citation Guides
MHRA is only one of several referencing systems EssayReply covers. These guides explain how to format specific source types once your course requires a different style.
- How to Cite a Book
- How to Cite a Journal
- How to Cite a Website
- How to Cite an Article
- How to Cite a Newspaper Article
- How to Cite a Government Website
Frequently Asked Questions
These are the questions students ask most often about MHRA footnotes, bibliographies, and the differences between this style and its closest relatives, answered briefly below.
What is MHRA citation style?
It is a notes-and-bibliography system from the Modern Humanities Research Association. It pairs a small raised number in the text with a complete alphabetical list at the end of the paper.
Do MHRA footnotes and bibliography entries use the same name order?
No. Footnotes give the author’s forename before the surname. The bibliography reverses this to surname first so entries can be alphabetized correctly.
Do I always need a bibliography in MHRA style?
Not always. Many short essays only require footnotes, but dissertations and longer projects almost always need a full bibliography, so check your assignment brief before submitting.
How do I cite the same MHRA source twice in a row?
Use ‘Ibid.’ followed by the page number for a citation that immediately follows another citation of the same source. For a repeat citation that is not consecutive, use the surname, a short title, and the page number instead.
Is MHRA the same as Chicago style?
They are similar but not identical. Both use small raised numbers and a list of sources, but MHRA follows its own rules for italics, punctuation, and journal citations that differ from Chicago’s notes-bibliography system.
How do I cite a website in MHRA style?
Give the writer or organization, the page title, the full URL in angle brackets, and the date you accessed the page in square brackets, both in the footnote and in the reversed-name bibliography entry.
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Terry is a Chicago-based writer and editor who creates practical, student-friendly guides on essay writing, research, and citation styles (APA, MLA, and Chicago). He’s spent 15+ years editing educational content and building clear examples that help readers apply rules without guessing. When he’s not revising drafts, he’s usually turning messy notes into clean outlines and hunting down the one detail everyone skips.