References and footnotes

This summary is circulated as a brief aid for footnotes. The full and definitive version of the
rules for layout and references as used in history at Southampton can be found at:
http://www.mhra.org.uk/Publications/Books/StyleGuide/

Footnotes
Where you draw on the interpretations and opinions of other historians, you must show this
clearly. In particular, word-for-word quotation must be indicated by quotation marks, and the
name of the author indicated in a footnote or endnote. Failure to do so will be treated as
plagiarism, for which the penalties are very serious indeed. For the reader’s convenience,
numbered notes to the main body of the text are normally placed at the foot of each page as
‘footnotes’. Do not use endnotes. Standard word-processing packages allow you to do this
easily (and will also renumber the notes automatically if you insert a fresh one in the middle).
The footnote marker is normally placed at the end of a sentence (after the full stop).

Detailed information, whether drawn from primary or secondary sources, should be

acknowledged in a note, though this is not necessary if it is a fact which can be taken to be
common knowledge among historians as distinct from one specially researched for the piece
of work: thus no source need be given for the fact that Queen Victoria came to the throne on
20 June 1837; but the statement that she was at first expected to sign public documents as
‘Alexandrina Victoria’ might be supported by a reference. You should acknowledge an
opinion even where you do not directly quote the author’s words; this is the standard and
preferred method for referring to someone else’s work. Quotations should not be used.

Do not overload your work with explanatory references. When more than a page reference is
required, give the essential information as briefly as possible. Avoid using notes to carry on a
secondary argument in parallel with the text. Usually the best practice is to have one footnote
at the end of a paragraph that contains all references relevant to that paragraph. Obviously,
this works best with short and well-organised paragraphs.

Where you have your information on a modern author or a primary source from another
modern author, the reference must always be given to the secondary work as the immediate
source, e.g.

Oxford Facsimiles, no.6, cited in V.H. Galbraith, Studies in the Public Records
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1948), p. 29.

Forms of Reference
What follows is a basic guide. Fuller details are available in the MHRA Style Guide. For all
Year Two and Final Year assessed work, your course tutor will give you guidance about
conventional forms of reference to subject-specific collections of primary source materials.

For books the title should be given in italics, and all significant words in the title should be
capitalised:

A.L. Poole, From Domesday Book to Magna Carta, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1955), pp. 172-8.
 The basic form is thus Author (initials, name), Title, details of edition or volume number if
needed including Place, Publisher (optional), date of publication, page reference.

For articles in journals, the title is put in inverted commas. The title of the periodical is
italicised. The name of the periodical may be shortened, if included in the list of
abbreviations (see below on abbreviations). Give the page range and the specific page(s) you
are referring to, e.g.

J. Riley-Smith, ‘Crusading as an act of love’, History 65 (1980), pp. 177-92 (p. 183).

M. Hurst, ‘Ireland and the Ballot Act of 1872', Historical Journal 8 (1965), pp. 326-
52 (pp. 337-8).

The basic form is thus Author, ‘Title’, Journal Title, volume number (date), page reference.
For chapters within books, the title of the chapter is treated like a journal article title, and the
title of the book it is included in is treated like a book title, e.g.

S. L. Thrupp, ‘The Gilds’, in The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. 3, ed.
by M. M. Postan, E. E. Rich and E. Miller (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1965), pp. 230-80.

The basic form is thus Author, ‘Title’, in Book Title, ed. by Editors (treat these like authors),
Place, Publisher (optional), date, page reference

For chapters in books, you should give the place and publisher (optional) followed by the
date. For articles, you should give the date only.

Once you have given a full reference, you should use the ‘shortest intelligible form’ in later
notes, e.g.

Poole, p. 261; Thrupp, p. 235.

Only if you are citing more than one work by the same author will you need to give a short
title, e.g.

Thrupp, ‘Gilds’, p. 235.

Here is an (invented) group of five successive notes, to show you how it would look on the
ground:
1 A. L. Poole, From Domesday Book to Magna Carta, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1955), pp. 172-8.
2 J. Riley-Smith, ‘Crusading as an act of love’, History, 65 (1980), pp. 177-92 (p. 183).
3 K.L. Wood-Legh, Perpetual Chantries in Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1965), p.22.
4 Poole, p. 132.
5 Riley-Smith, p. 25; Wood-Legh, p. 17.
Abbreviations
Titles which are frequently referred to in the notes or are commonly abbreviated (such as
names of periodicals, collections of source material, series of publications) may be more
drastically reduced to initial letters or a kind of ‘code-word’, as long as a list of these
abbreviations is provided and placed at the beginning of the bibliography, e.g.

ASC : Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (title of edition used should be given in the bibliography)

BPP: British Parliamentary Paper

AHR: American Historical Review

EHR: English Historical Review

Bibliography
All books, articles or other works which have been consulted in preparing written work,
whether or not they have been cited in the notes, should be listed in a bibliography at the end
of your work. They should be listed in alphabetical order, using the full forms demonstrated
above. For dissertations, where the bibliography is likely to be long, you should divide the
bibliography into sections: manuscript and unpublished sources; primary sources; secondary
sources. Don’t inflate the bibliography with works you have not used or read. You might
expect to find that you have used 3-4 books and 3-4 articles for a normal 2,500-word essay,
and substantially more for a larger piece of assessed work (at least 15-20 items comprising a
mixture of books and journal literature). Your ability to demonstrate your engagement with
and knowledge of this material will be reflected in the overall mark awarded to your work.

Citing Electronic Sources

If you cite an electronic source, use the following format for a web page:

Author's Initials, Last Name, Date, if available, Title of Item (if applicable), Editor or Author
of Complete Work (if applicable), Title of Complete Work (if applicable), <internet address>,
Date accessed.

Coolidge, J.C., 30 May 1928, ‘Address at Gettysburg Battle Field,’ from Library of Congress,
Prosperity and Thrift: The Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy, 1921-1929,
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/coolhtml/coolhome.html>, [Accessed 27 August 2009]

A word of warning: for factual information or academic research, you should not rely on
sources like Wikipedia, which is generated and maintained by users of the internet. Online
sources are easy to find, but should only be used if you are sure that there is nothing better
available, and that they genuinely contain ideas or perspectives that cannot be found
elsewhere.