Archival Citation
The citation form for unpublished material held in a collection: item, folder, box, collection, repository.
Archival material has no ISBN and no page in a printed edition, so its citation must instead describe a physical location. The standard order moves from smallest to largest: the item, then folder, then box, then the named collection, then the repository and its city.
This ordering is functional, not stylistic. A researcher retracing your steps requests a box from a repository, then a folder within it; the citation is effectively a call slip.
Quotations from letters, diaries, and drafts therefore need more apparatus than published quotations. Give the writer, the recipient, and the date of the document itself, because the collection name alone identifies the holding, not the utterance.
Common mistake: citing only the collection. "Smith Papers, University Library" may cover two hundred boxes, which for practical purposes is the same as giving no location at all.
“Jane Smith to Ada Reid, 12 March 1931, folder 4, box 17, Jane Smith Papers, University Library, Leeds.”
Keep reading the glossary
The original record of a quote — the book, letter, speech, or recording in which it first appeared.
A citation for information obtained privately — letter, email, interview — that a reader cannot retrieve.
A short letter code standing for a specific manuscript witness in a critical edition.
An unnumbered note that credits the origin of a whole chapter, table, epigraph, or image.