MHRA Referencing Guide

When you write your assignment, you are required to refer to the work of other authors to strengthen your argument and provide evidence for the points you want to make. Each time you do so, it is necessary to identify their work by making reference to them in your own written work. This practice of acknowledging authors is known as 'referencing'. 

References must be provided whenever you use someone else's views, theories, data or organisation of material. You may need to reference a range of different sources of information, for example from books, journal articles, videos, websites, images, computers and any other print or electronic sources.

Acknowledging the work of others in your writing is good academic practice. Referencing also shows the breadth of your research, allows the reader to consult your sources and verify your data, and helps to avoid plagiarism and the penalties involved.

There are three stages required in the MHRA method of referencing:

• Citing the source in the text by an in-text footnote reference number.
• Footnote at the bottom of the page containing publication details for the source to which you have refered.
• Reference in bibliography, i.e. the full publication details for sources used, arranged alphabetically by author name or organisation name in a list provided towards the end of your assignment.