• 3-minute read
• 29th June 2020

How to Cite an Online Video in MHRA Referencing

Online video platforms, like YouTube, have become common as educational resources. And if you’re using an online video in your work, you’ll need to make sure you cite it correctly. To find out how to cite an online video using MHRA referencing, check out our guide below.

Citing an Online Video in MHRA Referencing

As with all sources in MHRA, you will need to cite any online videos you reference with a superscript number in the main text:

Typically, citation numbers appear at the end of a sentence.¹

These numbers each point to a footnote at the bottom of the relevant page, which is where you provide source information. The format here for an online video, including a YouTube video, is as follows:

n. Creator’s name or username, Title, type of source, title of website (e.g. YouTube), date, <URL> [date accessed].

Your first footnote, for instance, could look like this:

1. Lindsay Ellis, The Case for Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, online video recording, YouTube, 1 Nov 2017, <https://youtu.be/AIIWy3TZ1eI> [accessed 7 March 2020].

You may also want to include a timestamp to point to a particular part of the video, like you would with page numbers for a print source.

To cite the same source again later in your work, moreover, you can use a shortened footnote format to prevent repetition. For an online video, this should include the creator’s surname, plus an abbreviated title if you’ve used more than one source by the same creator.

Formatting the Bibliography Entry for an Online Video

If you cite an online video in your work, you should also include it in the bibliography at the end of the document.

The information here is similar to the first footnote citation, except:

1. You should invert the first listed creator’s names (i.e. surname first, followed by their first name). Give any additional creators’ names in the standard order. If you only have a username, use this instead.
2. You do not need a pinpoint citation or a full stop at the end of the entry.
3. Each line after the first should include a small hanging indent.

For instance, the bibliography entry for the video above would look like this:

Ellis, Lindsay, The Case for Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, online video recording, YouTube, 1 Nov 2017, <https://youtu.be/AIIWy3TZ1eI> [accessed 7 March 2020]

You should now be able to correctly reference online videos using MHRA referencing. But if you’d like help to check any aspect of your work, including the references, why not submit your work for proofreading?