Handy Guide to Footnoting

Footnoting can seem like a confusing business at first – but once you get the hang of it, you’ll
find it comes naturally, and will then be as intolerant of inconsistent referencing as your
pedantic supervisors!

The important things are internal consistency and attention to detail. There is, of course, more
than one school of footnoting – you may have heard of MLA style, Harvard style, and
MHRA style, among others. What is set out below is the Cambridge house style, which is
basically MHRA with a few slight tweaks – it is the style in which you will be referencing
your coursework next year, so it’s well worth getting a grip on it now.

Here you will find explanations of firstly how to use footnotes, then how to construct
footnotes, then how to write a bibliography. All the examples (which are made up) are in red.

How to Use Footnotes

The first time you refer to any text, footnote your first quotation/direct reference immediately
after the quotation.

E.g. As the narrator declares in the first line of Pride and Prejudice (1813), ‘a single man in
possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.’1 In this essay...
1
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p.3.

If this text is going to be the principle subject of the essay – or is one of a handful of principle
texts – you can then add at the end of your footnote: “All future references are to this edition
and will be given in brackets in the text.” After this, you can just give (p.number) after each
quotation. Eg: “When Elizabeth says to Darcy that he is ‘the last man in the world whom
[she] could ever marry’ (p.45)...”.

If there are several texts, then you may abbreviate the title to its initials and italicise this to
distinguish between texts clearly. For example, in an essay on Sense and Sensibility and Pride
and Prejudice, after you had fully footnoted both novels once and added the note I have
described above, you could abbreviate them to SS and PP when referencing in brackets. Eg:
“When Elizabeth says to Darcy that he is ‘the last man in the world whom [she] could ever
marry’ (PP, p.45)...”.

If you prefer, you can instead footnote each future reference (after the complete first
reference) with a title (truncated if it is very long) and page number.

Eg: 2Pride and Prejudice, p.45.

It is entirely up to you whether you prefer the bracketing or truncated footnoting.

With critical texts, you should footnote your first mention of a critic exactly as I describe
below, and then all future references to the same work should be given as a truncated
footnote; usually: Author, p.number.
Eg: If you have already made reference to an article by Joe Bloggs entitled “The Shades of
Pemberley: Property in Pride and Prejudice”, a future references would simply read “Bloggs,
p.60”

If, however, you have quoted several works by the same writer, you would give the name, a
truncated title, and page number.

Eg: if in the course of your essay, you are discussing two articles by Joe Bloggs, one called
“The Shades of Pemberley: Property in Pride and Prejudice” and another called “Lydia’s
Bonnet: Why Hats Matter in Pride and Prejudice”, after giving full references to both the first
time, subsequent references can just say ‘Bloggs, “Lydia’s Bonnet”, p.40” or ‘Bloggs, “The
Shades of Pemberley”, p.60”

Remember the golden rule: you should provide a reference every single time you quote a
work by someone else. So check back through your work, and every time you see a
quotation or a direct reference to someone else’s work, make sure there is a footnote if this is
your first reference to this source, a truncated footnote for subsequent references, or (if it’s
the main primary text your essay is dealing with), a page number in brackets.

Also remember that you should always mention the name of the author and the original date
of publication when you first refer to the text/s on which your essays focus –eg: “This essay
will explore the theme of xyz in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813).” Don’t think that
because it’s in a footnote, you don’t need it in the body of the essay. This goes for critics’
names as well – mention their name in the body of the essay *as well as* in the footnote.

Now you know when to use footnotes, you are ready to learn....

How to Write a Footnote

NB: Do note the commas, the full stops, and the italicising in the examples that follow. When
handwriting an essay, underline instead of italicising.)

Referencing a full-length work (eg: a novel, a play, a collection of essays)

Author, Title (Place: Publisher, Date), p.number.

Eg: Very Clever Critic, How to Write Essays (London: Penguin, 1999), p.5.

Note: if you are referencing a work that was written at an earlier time and has been reprinted,
you should give the original date of publication as well. This is in order to make it clear that
you understand it’s a reprint.

Eg: Victorian Novelist, Nineteenth-Century Classic (1850), (London: Penguin, 1996), p.5.

For a play, you give the playwright’s name, the title, the date of writing/first performance,
then publication details, and instead of a page number, Act.Scene.Line number.

Eg: Dramatic Genius, Groundbreaking Play (1887), (London: Penguin, 1992), 2.2.14-15.
Referencing a shorter work (eg: a poem, an essay, a short story)

Author, ‘Title’, Longer Work in Which it Appears, ed. Editor (Place: Publisher, Date),
pp.start-finish, p.number.

Eg: Important Critic, ‘Clever Remarks on Jane Austen’, Essential Guide to Jane Austen, ed.
Very Clever Critic (London: Penguin, 1995), pp.26-57, p.45.

Or: Short Story Writer, ‘Moving Vignette’ (1922), Selected Short Fiction of Short Story
Writer, ed. Later Critic (London: Penguin, 1982), pp.92-102, p.100.

Or: Tortured Genius Poet, ‘Sonnet on Being Heartbreaken’, Heartrending Poems (1852),
(London: Faber and Faber, 1992), l.3.

Referencing a Journal Article

Author, ‘Title’, Journal Title, Volume no. Issue number (date year), pp.first-last, p.number.

Eg: Very Clever Critic, ‘The Shades of Pemberley: Property in Pride and Prejudice’, The
Jane Austen Review, 1.3 (Spring 1982), pp.54-76, p.60.

Or: Important Critic, ‘Dickens and Dogs’, Animal Studies, 34 (2006), pp.1-30, p.12.

If you accessed the journal online, through something like JStor, you should give the stable
URL (ie: the web address) after this information. Do not make the mistake of thinking that
you only need the web address, you still need everything else as well! And you’ll still need to
give the original publication details if an essay has been reprinted elsewhere, whether online
or in an anthology (eg: so as to make it clear that you don’t think George Eliot first published
a review in JStor, you would give the original publication details – Eg: “George Eliot,
‘Thoughts on the French Novel’, Cornhill Magazine, 14.11 (June 1860), repr. Anthology of
George Eliot’s Writing, ed. Very Clever Critic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990),
pp.2-20, p.2.”

And lastly...

How to Write a Bibliography

You supply a bibliography at the end of your essay, and it’s essentially a list of all the texts
you have used to write this essay. This means that in addition to all the texts you have quoted
directly, you should include any texts which have influenced your argument, not only the
texts you have quoted directly. There is no need to include books or articles which are not
relevant to your essay – don’t include things just for the sake of it! – but if you think you
were influenced by a critic, even though you didn’t quote them directly, you should mention
them in your bibliography.
You split your bibliography into Primary and Secondary Texts. “Primary Texts” are the texts
your essay is about: the play by Shakespeare, the novel by George Eliot, the poem by the
obscure but brilliant beat poet of the 1960s, or whoever. “Secondary Texts” are the works
that are about those texts, that you have used to illuminate them. Often, the distinction will be
very easy to make: the primary texts are the novels/plays/poems, the secondary texts are the
critical books and essays about those novels/plays/poems.

Sometimes, it’s a little bit harder to distinguish – for example, if you are talking about George
Eliot’s own critical writing to help you interpret Mill on the Floss, you might hesitate – but
you would probably include both in the primary texts section, because George Eliot’s own
essays are the objects of your study as well as the accessories to it. As a rule of thumb, all
texts by the writers you are writing about (eg: George Eliot, in this case) are primary texts,
and all texts about them are secondary.

You reference works in a bibliography exactly as you footnote them, except that you reverse
the first and second names of writers, so as to alphabetise them by surname. When the
surname is the same, you then alphabetise by first name; if that is the same, alphabetise by
the title of the text.

So, to make a bibliography from all the silly examples included above:

Bibliography

Primary Texts

Genius, Dramatic, Groundbreaking Play (1887), (London: Penguin, 1992).

Novelist, Victorian, Nineteenth-Century Classic (1850), (London: Penguin, 1996).

Writer, Short Story, ‘Moving Vignette’ (1922), Selected Short Fiction of Short Story Writer,
ed. Later Critic (London: Penguin, 1982), pp.92-102.

Secondary Texts

Critic, Important, ‘Clever Remarks on Jane Austen’, Essential Guide to Jane Austen, ed.
Very Clever Critic (London: Penguin, 1995), pp.26-57.

Critic, Important, ‘Dickens and Dogs’, Animal Studies, 34 (2006), pp.1-30.

Critic,Very Clever, How to Write Essays (London: Penguin, 1999).

Critic, Very Clever, ‘The Shades of Pemberley: Property in Pride and Prejudice’, The Jane
Austen Review, 1.3 (Spring 1982), pp.54-76.