How to Cite a Conference Paper in MHRA Referencing

After an academic conference, the papers are often published as ‘conference proceedings’. These are very valuable to students as they let you cite a conference paper even if you did not attend the conference.

But how do you cite a paper from a conference? Here is our guide to citing a conference paper using MHRA referencing.

Citing a Conference Paper in MHRA Footnote Citations

MHRA referencing uses footnote citations. In the first footnote for a conference paper, you need to provide the following details:

^n. Author’s Name, ‘Title of Paper’, in Title of Proceedings, ed. by Editor Name(s) (Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication), Page Range (Pinpoint Citation).

Notice that we have both the paper and proceedings. This makes citing a conference paper similar to citing a journal article or a chapter from a book.

Therefore, in practice the first citation for a paper from published conference proceedings would look like this:

^1. David Yow, ‘Reptiles in Religious Literature’, in Proceedings of the Third Annual Biblical Zoology Conference, ed. by D. Denison (Austin, TX: Capitol Inc., 1987), 84-92 (p. 87).

Note that the pinpoint citation is preceded by ‘p.’, but the complete page range is not. This may seem unusual, but it is standard in MHRA referencing.

Repeat Citations in MHRA

MHRA only requires full source information on the first footnote. For repeat citations, you can use a shortened format instead.

For consecutive citations (i.e. two or more citations in succession), simply use the Latin term ‘ibid.’ plus a page number. With non-consecutive citations, you should give the author’s surname and a pinpoint citation:

^1. David Yow, ‘Reptiles in Religious Literature’, in Proceedings of the Third Annual Biblical Zoology Conference, ed. by D. Denison (Austin, TX: Capitol Inc., 1987), 84-92 (p. 87).
^2. Ibid., pp. 84-85.
^3. Steve Albini, Shellac: Insects and the Food Industry (Chicago, Il: Electric Books, 2004), p. 289.
^4. Yow, p. 90.

Here, we see three references to the ‘Yow’ text, but we haven’t had to repeat full source information.

Conference Proceedings in an MHRA Bibliography

Finally, make sure to add any conference papers you cite to the bibliography. The format for a paper from published conference proceedings is:

Surname, First Name, ‘Title of Paper’, in Title of Proceedings, ed. by Editor Name(s) (Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication), Page Range

Note that the author’s names have been switched around, and there is no full stop at the end of the bibliography entry. As such, you would list the paper cited in the footnotes above as follows:

Yow, David, ‘Reptiles in Religious Literature’, in Proceedings of the Third Annual Biblical Zoology Conference, ed. by D. Denison (Austin, TX: Capitol Inc., 1987), 84-92

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