SPLAS, KING’S
SHORT STYLE GUIDE TO MHRA REFERENCING
Whenever you refer to somebody else’s work, you must give a clear indication of the
source of your reference. While SPLAS accepts any recognized academic referencing
system, it recommends the MHRA style. Below you will find brief guidelines to MHRA
referencing.
Presentation of Quotations
If a quotation is short (i.e. fewer than 40 words of prose or 2 lines of verse), enclose it in
single quotation marks in your sentence, followed by a footnote, e.g.
Armstrong concludes that ‘contemporary Brazilian literature is marked by an
increasing diversity of methods, styles and interests’.¹
Longer quotations should be separated from the main body of your text. Note that you
do not need quotation marks, e.g.
For Lorca, lullabies perform a function that is both sedative and educational:
La madre lleva al niño fuera de sí, a la lejanía, y le hace volver a su regazo para
que, cansado, descanse. Es una pequeña iniciación de aventura poética. Son los
primeros pasos por el mundo de la representación intelectual.²
He expands on this poetic initiation elsewhere in the essay.
If you omit part of the quotation, indicate the omission with an ellipsis in square brackets,
e.g. ‘the balance in Latin American narrative seems to have shifted […] to the
individual’.
Inserting footnotes
To insert footnotes in Microsoft Word go to the tool bar at the head of the document and
click on Insert — Reference — Footnote. Wherever possible, insert footnotes at the
end of the sentence, after the full stop.
Note that footnotes are to be used for referencing sources not for farming off odd bits of
argument that you can’t fit in the main body of your discussion.
If you refer to several sources in one sentence, list them in a single footnote, separated
by semi-colons, e.g.
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¹ Corsino Fortes, Poems/Poemas (London: Enitharmon, 2008), p. 22; David
Brookshaw, ‘The Golden Cage: Regeneration in Lusophone African Literature and
Culture’, Research in African Literature, 34, 3 (Fall 2003), 182-83 (p. 182).
Referring to a source for the first time
The first time you refer to a source, you should include full bibliographic details in a
footnote. Use the following formats.
Books:
¹ Jean Franco, An Introduction to Spanish-American Literature, 3rd edn
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 284.
² Hugo J. Verani, ed., Las vanguardias literarias en Hispanoamérica (Mexico
City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2003), p. 160.
³ Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, trans. by Margaret Jull Costa (London:
Serpent’s Tail, 1991), p. 37.
Note that only the first word is capitalized in Spanish and Portuguese book and article
titles, unlike English titles which capitalize all principal words.
Chapters or articles in books:
Claire Williams, ‘The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector’, in The
Cambridge Companion to the Latin American Novel, ed. by Efraín Kristal
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 245-57 (p. 246).
Articles in journals:
Eloy Fernández Porta, ‘Poéticas del Prozac: Tres líneas en la novela española de
los noventa’, Quimera, 145 (diciembre 1996), 35-37 (p. 35).
Articles in electronic journals:
Juan Villoro, ‘Sabemos que usted es ilustre: ¿quiere explicarnos a qué se
dedica?’, Letras Libres, 178 (octubre 2013)
<https://docs.google.com/gview?url=http://www.letraslibres.com/sites/default
/files/villoro01.pdf&chrome=true> [accessed 3 December 2013] (p. 18).
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Web pages:
Corsino Fortes, ‘A cesariana dos três continentes’
<http://www.poetrytranslation.org/poems/39/The_Caesarean_of_Three_Contin
ents/original> [accessed 21 November 2013] (p. 1).
Articles in newspapers:
Martin Dodsworth, ‘Words and Music’, The Guardian, 10 February 1977, p. 7.
PhD theses:
Rubén Ríos-Avila, ‘A Theology of Absence: The Poetic System of José Lezama
Lima’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Cornell University, 1983), p. 44.
Images, pictures and tables:
Provide the title of the image, figure or table, then include full details of the source of
the reference in a footnote, e.g.
Fig. 1. Manuel Álvarez Bravo, La Tolteca (1931).¹
¹ Manuel Álvarez Bravo: Photopoetry (London: Thames and Hudson, 2008), p. 30.
Sound recordings:
Gilberto Gil and Jorge Ben, Gil e Jorge, CD, Polygram 314 512 067 2 (1975).
Films:
Y tu mamá también, dir. by Alfonso Cuarón (Producciones Anhelo, 2001).
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Interviews and podcasts:
Doris Salcedo, ‘Doris Salcedo on the importance of memory’, San Francisco Museum
of Modern Art, November 2004 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOpEO8kq0uE>
[accessed 28 January 2014].
Luigi Amara, ‘Formas breves: “Aforismo”’, 31 July 2009
<http://www.letraslibres.com/podcast/ensayos/arte/formas-breves-aforismo>
[accessed 14 January 2014].
Plays and long works:
Fuente Ovejuna, II.1.12-14; Os Lusíadas, IV. 26-35.
Subsequent references
Subsequent references to a source that has already been detailed in a footnote should
employ the shortest intelligible form. Use of ‘ibid.’ can create ambiguity. Instead,
abbreviate your reference with the author’s name and page reference, e.g.
¹ Flora Süssekind, Tal Brasil, qual romance? Uma ideologia estética e sua
história. O naturalismo (Rio de Janeiro: Achiamé, 1984), p. 36.
² Süssekind, p. 137.
In some cases (e.g. if you refer to more than one work by a single author), an
abbreviated form of the title may be appropriate, e.g.
² Sheridan, Poeta con paisaje, p. 264.
³ Sheridan, Los Contemporáneos ayer, p. 34.
If you need to refer repeatedly to a single work, e.g. a primary source that is the subject
of your essay, you can create an abbreviation in the initial footnote which you then use in
the main body of your text.
¹ Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo, ed. by José Carlos González Boixo, 22nd edn
(Madrid: Cátedra, 2010), p. 63. Further references to this edition are given in
the text with the abbreviation PP.
In a later exchange Juan Preciado declares, ‘Me mataron los murmullos’ (PP,
119).
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Bibliography
At the end of your essay you should also include a bibliography that lists all the works
you have consulted. Arrange your bibliography in alphabetical order, placing the author’s
surname before their first name or initials. Note that you do not need a full stop at the
end of each entry in your bibliography, e.g.
Ángel Valente, José, Obra poética, 3 vols (Madrid: Alianza, 1999)
Brading, David A., Mito y profecía en la historia de México, trans. by Tomás
Segovia (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2004)
Campos, Augusto de, Poesia 1949-1979 (São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1986)
González Echevarría, Roberto and Enrique Pupo Walker, eds, The Cambridge
History of Latin American Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996)
Hervey, Sándor and others, Thinking Spanish Translation. A Course in
Translation Method: Spanish to English (London: Routledge, 1995)
A bibliography is often easier to follow if hanging indents are used at the start of each
item, and/or a space is left between items.
Further Guidance on MHRA Style
The full MHRA Style Guide can be downloaded free at
http://www.mhra.org.uk/Publications/Books/StyleGuide/download.shtml. See in particular
the chapters ‘References’, ‘Quotation and Quotation Marks’ and ‘Spelling and Usage’.
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