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Citation Styles and Tools: Harvard

About Harvard Style

Harvard style is an author-date referencing system that includes two elements:
  • in-text citations in the body of your paper
  • reference list at the end of your paper

References

Reference list entry for a book always include:

  • Author(s) or editor(s); last name and initials
  • Year of publication (in round brackets)
  • Title in italics. Only capitalize the first letter and proper nouns
  • Edition (only if it is not the first edition).
  • Place of publication: Publisher
  • Series (if part of one)

For example:

Ashby, M.F. (2005) Materials selection in mechanical design. 3rd edn. Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth Heinemann

When creating your reference list entry for a book chapter, always include:

  • Author of chapter or section; last name and initials
  • Year of publication in (round brackets)
  • Title of chapter or section in 'single quotation marks' followed by editor and title of the book in italics
  • Place of publication
  • Publisher
  • Page number

For example:

Dahleh, M.D. (2005) '6.5 Matrix methods,' in DeSilva, C.W. (ed.) Vibration and shock handbook. Boca Raton: Taylor & Francis, pp.6-14

When creating your reference list entry for an e-book, always include:

  • Author(s) / editor(s); last name and initials
  • Year of publication (in round brackets)
  • Title of book in italics
  • Name of e-book collection in italics
  • Format [in square brackets]
  • URL
  • Date of access in (round) or [square] brackets

For example:

Winterbone, D.E. (1997) Advanced thermodynamics for engineers. Knovel. [Online]. Available at: http://www.knovel.com [Accessed 6 January 2011]

NOTE: Only cite books as e-books if you have accessed them online or through a Library database. Digitized books from the Library homepage should be cited as you would cite a print book.

When creating your reference list entry for a journal article, always include:

  • Author(s); last name and initials
  • Year of publication (in round brackets)
  • Title of article 'in single quotation marks'
  • Title of journal in italics. Capitalize first letter of each word except for conjunctions (and, of, the, for etc.)
  • Volume number, issue number (in round brackets), and page numbers

For example:

Zhu, S. and Chai, G.B. (2010) 'Ductile and brittle material failures in low-velocity impact.' Journal of Materials: Design and Applications, 224(L4), pp. 152-173

When creating your reference list entry for a web site or document, always include:

  • Author(s) or editor(s); last name and initials
  • Year of publication, if available (in round brackets)
  • Title in italics. Only capitalize the first letter and proper nouns
  • Format [in square brackets]
  • URL
  • Date of access in (round) or [square] brackets

For example:

Thompson, B. (2009) What role for TV in wired world? [Online]. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8115671.stm [Accessed 20 September 2013]

When creating your reference list entry for a standard, always include:

  • Name of authorizing organization
  • Year of publication (in round brackets)
  • Number and title of standard in italics
  • Place of Publication
  • Publisher

For example:

ASTM Standards (2008) C192/C 192M-07, Standard practice for making and curing concrete test specimens in the laboratory. Section four: Construction vol.04.02. West Conshohocken, PA: ASTM International.

When creating your reference list entry for a patent, always include:

  • Inventor(s); last name and initials
  • Year of publication (in round brackets)
  • Title in italics
  • Authorizing organization
  • Patent number
  • Format [in square brackets]
  • URL
  • Date of access in (round) or [square] brackets

For example:

Allard, R.J.W., Dyson, J. and Spaven, J.W. (2006) A cleaning head. UK Patent Office Patent no. GB2402047B [Online]. Available at: http://gb.espacenet.com [Accessed: 10 January 2011].

When creating your reference list entry for a thesis or dissertation, always include:

  • Author, last name and initials
  • Year of submission (in round brackets)
  • Title of thesis in italics
  • Degree statement
  • Degree-awarding institution

For example:

Mirza, N. (2007) Investigation of steering drift during straight line breaking. PhD thesis, University of Bradford

When creating your reference list entry for a conference paper, always include:

  • Author(s); last name and initials
  • Year of publication (in round brackets)
  • Title of paper 'in single quotation marks'
  • Title of conference: subtitle in italics
  • Location and date of conference
  • Place of publication: Publisher
  • Page numbers

For example:

Corfield, K. (1992) 'Engineering as a liberal art.' International, quality and environmental issues: Proceedings of the 3rd world conference on engineering education, vol 1. University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, 20-25 September. Southampton: Computational Mechanics Publications, pp. 75-84

In-text Citations

General in-text citation rules

Harvard citation style uses the author/date system for in-text citations. When formatting your in-text citations, you should always:

  • Include the author's last name and publication date (in brackets)
  • For direct quotes or are paraphrases/summary of the author's words include the page number
  • If you cite the same author more than once, from two books that were published in the same year, distinguish the two books with a letter; for example (Smith 1982a) and (Smith 1982b).

For example:

By the middle of this century, emerging markets will be nearly twice as large as the current developed economies (Van Agtmael 2007)
"By the middle of this century, emerging markets will be nearly twice as large as the current developed economies" (Van Agtmael 2007, p.12)

The author’s name may be integrated into the sentence, followed by the year of publication (and page number/s if applicable)

For example:

Robertson and Pitel (2011) predict an average growth of 5% for the continent for 2011 …
Robertson and Pitel (2011, p. 12) predict an average growth of 5% for the continent for 2011 …

Table of examples

The following examples illustrate general rules that can be applied to all information sources, including books, journal articles, websites, standards and patents, maps, and more.

Source Example
One author    (Harris 2001)
Up to three authors    (Wang and Roush 2000)
More than three authors    (Tayler et al. 2003)
No author    (Black's Medical Dictionary 1992)
Organization as author    (ACI Committee 2008)
No date    (Singh n.d.)
Editor    (ed. Jones 1998)
More than one editor    (eds. Bullinger and Warnecke 1985)
Paraphrases or direct quotes    (Deininger 2003, p.65)
Standards    (ASTM Standards 2010)
Patents    (Allard, Dyson and Spaven 2006)
Market research reports    (Keynote 2010)
Maps    (Department of Mines and Energy 2008)

Books

Do You Know That...

A reference list or end-text citations are the full list of sources you have referred to or cited in the body of your work.

A bibliography is the full list of works which you have used in the preparation of your written work.

A citation or in-text citation is the reference you make to a specific author's work when presenting a specific argument in your own work.

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