MHRA Referencing – Citing an Ebook

‘Electronic books? What kind of modern wizardry is this?’ says Professor McStuffy when presented with an e-reader. But you’re more tech-savvy than our old-fashioned friend, which is why you’ve looked up how to cite an ebook.

The good news is that, with MHRA referencing, the process is similar to citing a print book. But there are a few differences that you should know.

Citing an Ebook in MHRA Footnote Citations

In MHRA referencing, you should indicate footnote citations with a superscript number in the text of your document. For example:

Typically, superscript numbers appear at the end of a sentence.¹

You then give the source information in a footnote. The first time you cite an ebook in a document, the format for this is:

n. Author Name(s), Title (Place of Publication: Publisher, Year), page number(s) <URL/DOI> [Accessed date].

The only difference between an ebook and a print book is that you need to show where and when the book was accessed. For example:

1. Joseph McStuffy, The Good Old Days (Oxford: Yore Press Inc., 1999), p. 45 <https://www.anachronismbooks.com> [Accessed 23 April 2017].

There are a couple of variations to keep in mind when citing an ebook. When a book is accessed via an e-reader, this takes the place of a URL/DOI. In addition, not every ebook has page numbers, so you may have to give a chapter and/or paragraph number instead:

2. Silvia Modish, The Future is Here (London: Novel Publications, 2016), chapter 4, paragraph 5. Kindle edition.

Whatever the format of the ebook, make sure to give enough information for your reader to quickly identify the version you’re citing.

Repeat Citations in MHRA Referencing

MHRA referencing doesn’t require you to repeat the full publication information every time you cite a source. Instead:

• For consecutive repeat citations where there is no possibility of confusion over the source being cited, you can use the Latin term ‘ibid.’
• For non-consecutive repeat citations, in most cases, you only need to give the author’s surname plus page numbers for the new citation.

You can see examples of consecutive (footnote 2) and non-consecutive (footnote 4) repeat citations below:

1. Joseph McStuffy, The Good Old Days (Oxford: Yore Press Inc., 1999), p. 45 <https://www.anachronismbooks.com> [Accessed 23 April 2017].
2. Ibid., p. 122.
3. Silvia Modish, The Future is Here (London: Novel Publications, 2016), chapter 4, paragraph 5, Kindle edition.
4. McStuffy, p. 64.

If referencing more than one source by the same author, you should also give a shortened title for the ebook in repeat citations to prevent confusion.

Ebooks in an MHRA Bibliography

In the bibliography, you should list an ebook as follows:

Surname, First name, Title (Place of Publication: Publisher, Year) <URL/DOI> [Accessed date]

Note that the author’s names are reversed here, and there’s no pinpoint reference or end punctuation. In practice, an entry in the bibliography would look something like this:

McStuffy, Joseph, The Good Old Days (Oxford: Yore Press Inc., 1999) <https://www.anachronismbooks.com> [Accessed 23 April 2017]

As with footnotes, if the ebook was accessed via an e-reader, give the platform information after a full stop instead of a URL/DOI:

Modish, Silvia, The Future is Here (London: Novel Publications, 2016). Kindle edition

For more information on MHRA referencing, download the style guide here. And if you’d like an MHRA expert to check your work, we can help.