Guide to Harvard Referencing

Note: This is an advanced guide to Harvard, useful for professional editors, academics, and students looking to bump up their grades with flawless referencing! If you’re new to Harvard and feel a little lost, check out our introduction to Harvard referencing. For extra help from Harvard experts, try our student proofreading services for free, or learn more about our editing services for businesses.

Harvard referencing refers to the general citation style of listing a source’s author and date in parentheses within the text, with a corresponding entry in a reference list at the end of the work.

Variations

If a customer says they’ve been asked to use the Harvard referencing style, it could be one of many variations. You should check if a particular version has been specified. If there isn’t, use this guide to apply the version we use, but add a note for the customer to check with their institution. Also, pay attention to the requested dialect. Quotation marks, for instance, will vary depending on whether the citation is written in US or UK English .

In-text Citations: The Basics

Essentially, the surname of the author of the source and the year of its publication must be given in the text. If it is not known when a source was published, it must be indicated with “no date” (abbreviated to “n.d.” ) in place of the year.

If a direct quote is made from a source, then the in-text citation must also include the page number (or paragraph) of the quote. For page numbers, the basic form is “p.” for a single page and “pp.” for quotes spanning multiple pages. For paragraphs, use “para.” (e.g., for websites that don’t have pages); for long documents without page numbers, you can choose to include the section or chapter number or name (e.g., Smith, 1998, Section title, para. 3), but do check with your institution’s style guide.

Those key pieces of information are given in parentheses in the same font as the surrounding text and separated by commas. The bracketed citation should immediately follow the portion of the sentence that comes from the external source. If the author is mentioned in the sentence, then the bracketed citation (which will then just include the year of publication) will need to follow directly after the author’s name.

In-text citations can take three basic forms :

• Something else (Carter, 1940) is relevant to this example.
• Carter (1940) said something relevant to this example.
• “This is relevant” (Carter, 1940, p. 64).

If the source doesn’t come from an author with a surname – a corporate body, for example – then the name of that organization takes the place of the surname:

• This guide on Harvard referencing advises… (Proofed, 2022).

These basic rules will need to be adapted to various circumstances, which we will discuss next.

Multiple Authors

When there are multiple authors of the same work, the main thing to remember is that in-text citations name one or two authors. For three or more authors, only the first is mentioned, followed by “et al.” (in which case, note that a period is used in addition to a comma because “al.” is an abbreviation).

NB: When it comes to the full list of references at the end, all authors – some institutions put a cap on this, but others simply say to consult the course tutor – should be listed.

When both authors are named, the in-text citation will spell out “and” rather than use an ampersand (“&”).

Same Name, Same Year

An exception to only giving the surname of the author is if there are authors with the same surname and publications from the same year. In that case, the author’s initials should be added for clarity . Whether that initial comes before or after the surname, and whether or not it should have a period, will depend upon the university’s style guide. Our general approach is to put a period after an initial, as you would in any writing, but you should go for consistency within the document and flag the issue with a comment.

Multiple Works, Same Author

More frequently, you may come across citations for more than one work by the same author. If they were from different years but cited together, there is no need for the author’s name to be repeated. The years of publication are then listed in reverse chronological order (i.e., the newest comes first) with the years separated by semicolons . Each individual source is then listed in the reference list.

NB: When it comes to the full list of references at the end, the order of sources by the same author is chronological (i.e., with the earliest first).

If, however, the author has multiple works from the same year, a lowercase letter should be added to the year to differentiate the sources. The lettering should be alphabetical in the order that the sources are cited in the text .

NB: The crucial thing to check here is that the same system is reflected in the reference list at the end.

Citing Multiple Sources

If there is more than one source cited in support of a statement (e.g., multiple works by the same author), they will need to be cited in reverse chronological order and separated by semicolons . If the list includes works from the same year , they should be cited alphabetically by author .

NB: If the customer has consistently cited references in chronological order, then you should simply add a note for them to check whether this is what their university requires. Given the many variations on the Harvard theme, this could well be the case.

What if There Isn’t an Author?

You may see cases where the title of the source is given in place of the author. This is likely because the source has no named author (whether individual or corporate). In these cases, using the title of the source (the book, collection, etc.) is an acceptable variation, but it’s advisable to flag it with a comment to make sure.

Secondary Citations

If you’re presented with a reference to a work within a work (i.e., the customer hasn’t read the original but has come across it as a reference in another), this is a secondary citation.

• You should leave a comment suggesting that the customer try to find the original source and refer to that.
• If that is not possible, the basic approach to secondary referencing is:
  • Include the author and year of the original within the in-text citationas well as the author and year of the available source.
  • Include in the Reference List only the source that has actually been read (the “available source”).

  In-text Citation	Full Reference Information
  A. Hopper (1911), cited in Carter (1940), says…	Carter, P. (1940) Title of available source, Place of Publication: Publisher.

  The Reference List (Or Is It a Bibliography?)

  The Harvard style requires a full list of all the sources that are cited within the text to be provided at the end of the document. The standard formatting requirement is to include it on a separate page titled Reference List .

  Sometimes, a university will require a list of all the sources considered within a piece of work, even if they haven’t all been cited. This type of list is called a Bibliography .

  • The two terms – Reference List and Bibliography – are often confused. When proofreading references, it’s best to flag the issue with a comment pointing out the distinction and recommending that the particular requirements of the university are checked.

  In either case, the sources are listed alphabetically by the first item in the source’s full reference (usually the author’s surname). A corporate author or title of a work (if that comes first) starting with “The,” “A,” or “An” should be listed as if that word weren’t there (e.g., a source from the Open University would be listed under “O,” not “T”).

  • The easiest fix that you may need to make to a reference list (of whatever description) is ensuring that it is sorted alphabetically by the first item in each reference. This can be done automatically using a simple tool in Word .
  • Where there are multiple sources by the same author, they should be listed chronologically with the earliest first (note that this is the reverse of the principle for in-text citations). NB: If the customer has presented the list consistently, don’t make any amendments. Just leave a comment for them to check that their approach is in line with the expectations of their university.

  Detailing the sources in a reference list is probably the biggest cause of headaches for both writers and proofreaders. This is because the particular requirements differ depending on the type of source – and there are many .

  The information itself is usually straightforward; it’s the formatting that gets tricky. In general terms, you could use the following as a checklist:

  Item	Example
  Author’s name: Surname first, then initial(s) after a comma, with a period after each initial.	Hopper, A. (1911). “This is my chapter,” in A. Name (ed.) This book. Kingston-Upon-Hull: Publisher, pp.30–45.
  Year of publication in parentheses, although this can vary between Harvard styles.	Hopper, A. (1911). “This is my chapter,” in A. Name (ed.) This book. Kingston-Upon-Hull: Publisher, pp.30–45.
  Title of any individual chapter (or similar) comes before the details of the main work. It is presented in quote marks and in sentence case; think of this as the warm-up to the main event. To separate this from the next piece of information, it is usually followed by a comma.	Hopper, A. (1911). “This is my chapter,” in A. Name (ed.) This book. Kingston-Upon-Hull: Publisher, pp.30–45.
  Title of the main work goes in sentence case (usually, although this can vary) and italics; think of this as stressing the importance of the main work. To separate this from the next piece of information, it is usually followed by a period.	Hopper, A. (1911). “This is my chapter,” in A. Name (ed.) This book. Kingston-Upon-Hull: Publisher, pp.30–45.
  If the source is not in hard copy/print form, the format is given in square brackets with a period after the closing bracket.	Hopper, B. (1911). “And this is my chapter,” in A. Name (ed). This other book [Online]. Available at https://allmadeup details.domain/yestotallymadeup/ (Accessed 1 April 2022).
  The place of publication appears before the name of the publisher, usually followed by a colon to separate it from the next piece of information.	Hopper, A. (1911). “This is my chapter,” in This book, Kingston-Upon-Hull: Publisher, pp.30–45.
  Publisher’s name comes after the place of publication. Think of the publisher as taking the important final credit. If further information does follow, there will need to be a comma in place.	Hopper, A. (1911). “This is my chapter,” in This book, Kingston-Upon-Hull: Publisher, pp.30–45.
  Any range of pages, URLs, and dates of access to online material come last. Make sure page ranges are formatted with an en dash (–) rather than a hyphen (-).	Hopper, A. (1911). “This is my chapter,” in This book, Kingston-Upon-Hull: Publisher, pp. 30–45.

  Let’s start with the most common types and see how those translate from in-text citations to full reference listings so that you can easily recognize them and, if necessary, fix them.

  Printed Media

  These sources are most likely to follow the general checklist given above. Within the list, “year of publication” is abbreviated to “year.” For particular issues relating to authors and years, please refer to the notes on in-text citations.

  Source Type	In-text Citation	Full Reference Information
  Book	(Author, year)