MHRA 4thed author-date issue

MariaLuzza
Hi all,

I am having the same issue as was pointed by a previous user in March. I am trying to generate my bibliography following the MHRA 4thed author-date style, but the date is not in the right place.

As an example, the reference I get is: Smith, Bill, Hornel: The Life & Work of Edward Atkinson Hornel (Atelier Books, 1997)
When what I would like is: Smith, Bill. 1997. Hornel: The Life & Work of Edward Atkinson Hornel (Atelier Books)

I did see in another post that user damnation mentioned the issue had been noted and gave the following link with instructions on how to download an updated file: https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/pull/7544
I followed the instructions and updated, but I still get the format with the date at the end. I have tried to get someone who knows a bit about coding to tinker with the code, but the best they could get is: Smith, Bill, 1997, Hornel: The Life & Work of Edward Atkinson Hornel (Atelier Books, 1997), which is not ideal.

Would there be anyone who would be able to fix this? I am handing in my PhD thesis in just over a week, so I am seriously considering generating the bibliography in its current style and editing the 100+ references manually, at this point x)

Any help or advice appreciated! :D
  • dunning
    I can confirm that MHRA author–date is not formatting the bibliography using this style. Do you have the option of using APA or Chicago, both of which have more functional author–date styles?
  • MariaLuzza
    Unfortunately my supervisors have specifically asked me to use MHRA author-date, so no room for change for me.
    If it comes to that, I will just generate then edit the date placement manually. I hand in in less than 7 days so I am not at the stage where I can change stuff ^^'

    But thank you for your answer!
  • dunning
    You could try the old style from the 3rd edition of the MHRA Style Guide here:

    https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/blob/296f9ab65c1eb1e3774e33dc6214044db89d783d/modern-humanities-research-association-author-date.csl

    I desperately need a revised MHRA style myself to complete a writing project, but I'm trying to finish the 18th edition of Chicago first!
  • damnation
    edited 16 days ago
    It would've been better if you had added a comment to the other thread. Now I had to look for the info and we have info on this in two separate threads. And as a matter of fact, in that thread I mentioned that that PR was merged. So you already had that style and didn't need to do anything. it was the version you had available as mentioned in the last comments.

    I've provided a PR: https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/pull/7582

  • dunning
    Many thanks, @damnation for looking into this. This thread is flagging a different problem: the bibliography entries are using note rather than author–date formatting (i.e. the date is missing after the contributor name).

    I've put together a fix here that addresses the main problem, but the style in general needs a lot more work:

    https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/pull/7583
  • damnation
    But that's exactly the change I made in my PR. I understand that the MHRA author-date style doesn't follow the note style perfectly.
    When we created the author-date version we just made a copy and change the in-text behaviour without checking really what happens in the bibliography. But that PR 7582 addresses that issue with having a date in the "publisher brackets".
  • damnation
    But that's exactly the change I made in my PR. I understand that the MHRA author-date style doesn't follow the note style perfectly.
    When we created the author-date version we just made a copy and change the in-text behaviour without checking really what happens in the bibliography. But that PR 7582 addresses that issue with having a date in the "publisher brackets". Or am I misinterpreting something?
  • dunning
    The MHRA Style Guide forms for author–date bibliography citations are somewhat hidden; the relevant section is here:

    https://www.mhra.org.uk/style/chapter8.html#section_8_4

    The key omission from the current CSL style for MHRA author–date is the year following the author's name.

    Thanks again for looking at this and please feel free to point out any potential improvements in my work.
  • MariaLuzza
    Sorry @damnation, because I felt my issue was different I didn't think about commenting on the old thread.

    I did try to follow all the instructions you gave in that old thread but still did not get the output I was hoping for. To give a visual explanation, in the old thread my output was: Smith, Bill, Hornel: The Life & Work of Edward Atkinson Hornel (Atelier Books, 1997).
    I just tried with your new PR and got this output: Smith, Bill, Hornel: The Life & Work of Edward Atkinson Hornel (Atelier Books). So the date just disappeared altogether.

    What I was looking for was: Smith, Bill. 1997. Hornel: The Life & Work of Edward Atkinson Hornel (Atelier Books)
    i.e. the date after the name of the author, and full stops on either side.

    But I just followed the same procedure with your PR, @dunning, and it worked!! PR 7583 gave me exactly the style I explained above, following section 8.4 of the MHRA style guide.

    I am very, very grateful to the both of you for looking into this, you have probably saved me between 3 to 5 hours of work, thank you so very much!

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