The ''MHRA Style Guide'' is an

open-access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

handbook of academic writing published by the Modern Humanities Research Association. Widely adopted in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and beyond, particularly in the fields of modern languages,

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

, and

cultural studies Cultural studies is an academic field that explores the dynamics of contemporary culture (including the politics of popular culture) and its social and historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers investigate how cultural practices rel ...

, the guide standardizes conventions for

spelling Spelling is a set of conventions for written language regarding how graphemes should correspond to the sounds of spoken language. Spelling is one of the elements of orthography, and highly standardized spelling is a prescriptive element. Spelli ...

punctuation Punctuation marks are marks indicating how a piece of writing, written text should be read (silently or aloud) and, consequently, understood. The oldest known examples of punctuation marks were found in the Mesha Stele from the 9th century BC, c ...

, and

citation A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose o ...

. The fourth edition (2024) has been substantially revised from earlier versions to reflect developments in digital publishing and contemporary academic practice.

History

The style guide descends from the ''MHRA Style Book'', first issued in 1971. Its roots lie in the editorial meetings of the '' Modern Language Review'', held since 1905. The 2024 edition represents the ninth revision overall and the fourth under the ''Style Guide'' title. Editorial oversight is entrusted to a voluntary committee of scholars.

Scope and purpose

The ''MHRA Style Guide'' does not address questions of

rhetoric Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse ( trivium) along with grammar and logic/ dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or w ...

argument An argument is a series of sentences, statements, or propositions some of which are called premises and one is the conclusion. The purpose of an argument is to give reasons for one's conclusion via justification, explanation, and/or persu ...

, or expression. Rather, it offers prescriptive guidance on the mechanical elements of style:

orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...

, punctuation,

capitalization Capitalization ( North American spelling; also British spelling in Oxford) or capitalisation (Commonwealth English; all other meanings) is writing a word with its first letter as a capital letter (uppercase letter) and the remaining letters in ...

quotation A quotation or quote is the repetition of a sentence, phrase, or passage from speech or text that someone has said or written. In oral speech, it is the representation of an utterance (i.e. of something that a speaker actually said) that is intro ...

, referencing, and indexing. It is intended to ensure

typographical Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line spacing, letter spac ...

and bibliographical consistency across MHRA publications and to support scholars, students, and publishers in the humanities more broadly. It is modelled on ''

Hart's Rules ''Hart's Rules'' is the oldest continuously updated style guide in the English language, providing advice on topics such as punctuation, citation, and typography. Printer and biographer Horace Hart first issued the work in 1893 for the comp ...

'', published by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

Structure and features

The 2024 edition is organized into eight chapters, replacing the fourteen of the previous edition. It includes sections on: * spelling and punctuation (notably Oxford ‘-ize' forms and use of accents) * referencing of print, digital, and audiovisual materials * style for foreign languages, transliteration, and non-Latin scripts * preparation of copy for publication, including tables, illustrations, and indexing A Quick Guide summarizes key conventions. Online versions of the guide are available free of charge under a Creative Commons licence. The ''Guide' also remains available in print.

Publication history

''MHRA Style Book''

* 1971: first edition * 1978: second edition * 1981: third edition * 1991: fourth edition * 1995: fourth edition reprinted with amendments * 1996: fifth edition

''MHRA Style Guide''

* 2002: first edition * 2008: second edition * 2013: third edition * 2015: third edition reprinted with minor corrections * 2024: fourth edition

References

{{Reflist 1971 non-fiction books Style guides for British English Academic style guides